Music
An 1829 opera about Elizabeth I and her supposed lover — enlivened by underhanded threats, virtuous resistance, remorse, and an attempted poisoning — proves well worth reviving.
The new album demonstrates just how versatile a singer/songwriter Mike Mattison really is.
Ironically, Mixing Colours is best experienced by taking in its video presentations.
Soprano Ruby Hughes’ album is fine, well played, sung, and programmed; baritone Christoph Prégardien delivers vocal works by Mahler, Alexander von Zemlinsky, and Max Reger with warmth; soprano Diana Damrau is in her glorious prime singing the songs of Strauss.
Isabelle Faust makes Arnold Schoenberg’s thorny Violin Concerto sing; Mariss Jansons lends heft to Saint-Saëns’ Symphony no. 3, and John Wilson continues to be your go-to conductor for Erich Wolfgang Korngold.
Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin’s pairing of Beethoven with Knecht is intelligent, programmatically and musically, but Thierry Fischer’s Symphony fantastique is a disappointing misfire.
Last Desert proves that guitarist Liberty Ellman and his group can dance when they want
Eschewing ostensible flash and musical sleight of hand, Without Deception is a treat for connoisseurs.
The practice of re-using large chunks of an opera for a new plot and new words may sound implausible to us, but in Rossini’s hands the result is delightful and surprisingly coherent.
Arts Remembrance: Flutist Doriot Anthony Dwyer
Doriot Anthony Dwyer was a virtuoso flutist, one who could coax brightly burnished tones out of the instrument.
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