COMING SOON! The Met HD broadcast is going to be on Great Performances tonight. I missed the broadcast in theaters this past February but I’m not missing this one. I’ll be live-tweeting from my couch tonight starting around 9 PM EDT. Join in if you’d like or just let me clog your Twitter feed for [...]
Tag Archives: my year of opera
My Year of Opera 19: Elektra
Ugh. This one. Did not enjoy it. Learned a lot about my tastes from it, though! Some disclaimers: I’m not a fan of late-Romanticism. I appreciate it, I understand what people like about it, I know how the music “works,” etc. But it does nothing for me. I do not listen to it for pleasure. [...]
My Year of Opera 18: Giulio Cesare
Sadly this was not the recent MET Live broadcast. I had been planning on going to that all season but when it finally came time there were too many scheduling obstacles. Fortunately, I was able to watch what I believe was the same David McVicar production at Glyndebourne. This had Sarah Connolly* as Cesare, Danielle [...]
My Year of Opera: End of the First Trimester
Having watched 17 operas so far this year, I’ve compiled some stats. Post #18 is forthcoming… Composers Represented: Berlioz (Les Troyens) Sondheim (Company, Into the Woods) Donizetti (L’elisir d’Amore) Rossini (La Cenerentola) Berg (Wozzeck) Whedon (Dr. Horrible, Once More With Feeling) Britten (Peter Grimes, A Midsummer Night’s Eve) Zappa (200 Motels) Verdi (Falstaff) Sullivan (Pirates [...]
My Year of Opera 17: Powder Her Face
Like there are multiple DVDs of this piece? I was glad there was one! I heard the work when it first made waves back in the late 90s and really didn’t connect with it. And this opera doesn’t really work as a purely auditory experience; scored for 4 singers three of which sing multiple parts [...]
My Year of Opera 16: Manon
This production was the one with Renee Fleming singing Manon and conducted by Jesús López-Cobos. Another French opera and some references to nuns early in the first act (Manon is going to join a nunnery because she is a wild child at home) made me very skeptical of how the whole thing was going to [...]
My Year of Opera 15: Dialogue of the Carmelites
Oh, man. Wow. I live-tweeted about watching Poulenc’s Dialogue of the Carmelites when I watched it this past Sunday. Long story short: this is the Australian Opera DVD production sung in English without subtitles. I know, I know, but when I saw that the CMU library had just added a video of this opera to [...]
My Year of Opera 14: Song from the Uproar
Sadly, no, I didn’t really see this opera. I did buy the special edition of the recording, though. That set includes a DVD with an opera-long film by Stephen S. Taylor. I still really REALLY want to see the opera. I love Mazzoli’s music and think this is just a fabulous opera in ever respect. [...]
My Year of Opera 13: Midsummer Night’s Dream
So Britten joins Whedon and Sondheim as “the composers I’ve watched more than once.” While my in-laws were in town a few weeks ago they gave me a DVD of Britten’s Midsummer Night’s Dream. It is the very colorful production by Orquestra Simfonica del Gran Teatro del Liceu and I had borrowed my father-in-law’s copy [...]
My Year of Opera 12: Once More With Feeling
Yes, as in the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I’m a bit fan of the show and I was always skeptical when people told me there was a musical episode. I figured it would never work but, of course, it did. I’ve watched it many times, actually bought the soundtrack for it (nerd!), [...]