Music

Opera Album Review: Before “Carmen,” There Was Massenet’s Spanish-Tinged “Don César de Bazan”

January 24, 2021
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World premiere recording of an utterly delicious 1872 comic opera, recorded without spoken dialogue, so you can just revel in the music and the singing.

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Classical Album Review: Žibuoklė Martinaitytė’s “Saudade” — Engrossing and Accessible Recent Orchestral Music

January 22, 2021
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Taken together, these four pieces showcase a composer whose handling of the orchestra is expert and whose sense of form, in these works at least, feels unerringly right.

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Opera Feature: Should We Be Updating Operas So They Address Present-Day Issues?

January 22, 2021
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Philip Glass’s librettist Arthur Yorinks offers his thoughts on whether and how to update an opera as the Boston Lyric Opera releases its revamped and filmed version of The Fall of the House of Usher.

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Listening During Covid, Part 4: Fascinating Vocal Adventures from Different Times and Places

January 21, 2021
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I may be in quarantine, but music can transport me back to the Middle Ages, or to the court of Catherine the Great of Russia, or, via Donizetti, to an imagined India.

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Arts Remembrance: Phil Spector

January 19, 2021
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The late Phil Spector once famously referred to his songs as “little symphonies for the kids.”

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Opera Preview: Boston Lyric Opera Revamps Philip Glass’s “Fall of the House of Usher” for Today

January 16, 2021
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How do you make filmed opera relevant in the Age of COVID? The BLO isolated the performers from one another and made E.A. Poe’s story the dream of an immigrant child in detention on the US/Mexico border.

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Classical Album Review: John Adams Orchestral Works

January 13, 2021
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My Father Knew Charles Ives and Harmonielehre make an excellent pairing on the Nashville Symphony Orchestra’s new, all-Adams album led by music director Giancarlo Guerrero.

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Opera Preview: Donizetti’s “The Pariah” — One of the Most Significant Opera Releases of the Past Few Years

January 10, 2021
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The long-forgotten Il paria (1829), a work that Donizetti himself prized more highly than many of his other works, has now been reconstructed by a scholarly team and given a splendid recording.

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Album Review: “Man on the Moon III: The Chosen” — Kid Cudi Finds Himself, Again

January 9, 2021
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Occasional slip-ups shouldn’t obscure appreciation of Kid Cudi’s fantastic vocal performance.

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Classical Album Review: “Adrian Boult: A Musical Legacy” — Introduction to a Special Conductor

January 8, 2021
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Sir Adrian Boult certainly had his ups and downs as a conductor, but these performances showcase him largely at his best.

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