Ralph P. Locke

Opera Review: Galuppi’s “L’amante di tutte” — A Total Hoot!

November 26, 2020
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A delightful and compact opera — from a generation before Mozart — that cuts various social types down to size.

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Classical CD Reviews: Listening During COVID, Part 2 — A Lute, a Particularly Silken Steinway, and Mahler Himself Playing in a 1905 Piano Roll

November 18, 2020
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A trio of recordings help us rethink and rehear composers as varied as Barbara Strozzi (from the seventeenth century), Chopin, and Mahler.

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Opera CD Review: Verdi’s Opera about Attila the Hun Gets a Taut, Vivid New Recording

November 16, 2020
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Metropolitan Opera stars Ildebrando d’Arcangelo and Liudmyla Monastyrska headline a new recording that reveals Verdi operatic mastery five years before Rigoletto.

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Classical CD Reviews: Listening During COVID — Beethoven’s Jesus, Liszt’s Variations on “Norma,” and Janáček’s Animal Opera

November 13, 2020
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Concert halls and opera houses remain closed — but unusual musical experiences await in this era of social isolation.

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Opera Review: Paisiello’s “Le gare generose” — Italians, Quakers, and Slavery in 18th-century Boston

November 5, 2020
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The lively world-premiere recording of Giovanni Paisiello’s Le gare generose proves why the composer was in demand all across Europe.

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Opera Review: Purcell’s “Dido” — Re-made for the Lives We are Living Now

November 2, 2020
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Coming soon to your computer or cellphone: The Boston Camerata launches a bold staged performance of Purcell’s pathbreaking opera, but in a way that keeps its cast and audience safe.

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Opera Album Review: A Baroque Opera — Ripped from 18th Century Headlines

October 13, 2020
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Telemann’s music here is a delight, often resembling, in style, appeal, and high craftmanship, what we find in Handel’s operas and oratorios.

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Opera Album Review: Offenbach in a Spanish Mood, in a Top-notch First Recording

October 1, 2020
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Bravo to the Bru Zane folks for this latest triumph! I encourage opera lovers to get to know this treasurable Spanish (or faux-Spanish) work by the pioneering master of nineteenth-century operetta.

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Opera Album Review: A Terrific Recording of a Handel Pathbreaker — Powered by a Rock-Star Mezzo-Soprano

September 28, 2020
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Agrippina (1709), an enormous hit at the Met this past season, proves, by turns, gripping, sardonic, and exquisite.

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Opera Album Review: Ermonela Jaho, a Soprano We Need Today

September 19, 2020
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A world-star soprano, in her magnificent prime at age 36, offers her first recital CD, and you can participate in its online “launch.”

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