Opera Music

This is SOME VOICE!!!! Kipnis sings scenes from Seraglio, Simon Boccanegra, Don Carlo, Meistersinger, Parsifal (with Fritz Wolff) and then three Russian folk songs,followed by the Brahms "Vier ernste Gesange" and then Brahms' "Von ewige liebe" and finally Schubert's "Erlkonig" "Heidenroslein" and "Ungeduld." (72 minutes)

That most profound and controversial of all operatic composers was born 200 years ago today. In celebration of the natal day, WKCR is broadcasting a Wagner marathon, all the operas from Rienzi to Parsifal, over the next two days. La Cieca expects the cher public will assist in the festivities by sharing favorite YouTube clips of Wagnerian brilliance.

It’s Verdi’s bicentenary year and Rolando Villazón has two new CDs to plug — titled somewhat confusingly, ‘Villazón: Verdi’ and ‘Villazón’s Verdi’, the latter a ‘personal selection’ of favourite numbers performed by stars of the past and present.

This second revival of Jonathan Miller’s La bohème was the first time I had caught the production.

Baritone Gareth John is rapidly accumulating a war-chest of honours. Winner of the 2013 Kathleen Ferrier Award, he recently won the Royal Academy of Music Patrons’ Award and was presented the Silver Medal by the Worshipful Company of Musicians.

A Wagner documentary without Howard Goodall or Stephen Fry? Yes, it can be done. Here's the earliest effort: Carl Fröhlich's 1913 silent movie The Life and Works of Richard Wagner. The series of reverential vignettes was put together to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the composer's birth. Ideally it would have been accompanied by an orchestra playing Wagner's music at each showing, but the makers didn't want to stump up the required royalties. So they commissioned Giuseppe Becce to craft a Wagner-like score; close enough to sound like the real thing, but different enough to avoid legal retaliation. Becce bore such an uncanny resemblance to Wagner that he was drafted in to act the part of the composer as well. There's no sound on the video above, so feel free to slam on some Daft Punk. For a more traditional dose of Wagnerian bombast, there's Tony Palmer's 8 hour bio-fiction Wagner. It's a patchy effort, but there's plenty of music, and Richard Burton is as watchable as ever: Finally, here's an oddity from 1982: Petr Ruttner's more fartsy than artsy Wagner e Venezia, with Orson Welles voicing the composer:

At the end of this week we'll be celebrating the beginning of summer, 2013, and we'll begin getting ready for our exciting 2014 International Season! What better way to do that then to have a few podcasts dedicated to a 'refresher' course in opera? Today Nicolas Reveles, our Geisel Director of Education and Outreach for San Diego Opera takes a look at the essence of the art form, how

Since 1981, San Diego Opera has staged Puccini’s Tosca five times, plus I have seen the excellent film with Kabaivanska, Domingo and Milnes, a previous production at Los Angeles Opera, and several televised versions. So why drive to Los Angeles to see Tosca again? The answer – to see and hear its star, Sondra Radvanovsky. [...]

American tenor James Valenti will essay a new Verdi role at Caramoor this summer…. Don Carlos. The role which is a custom fit for Mr. Valenti’s vocal instrument as we find it today, will likely give new facets to the character where other artists have not been able to do so. Operaphiles recognize there is [...]

“The question on everyone’s lips at Carnegie Hall was, ‘Is Jimmy back in form?’ The answer, after a nearly three-hour program featuring the Met Opera orchestra and piano soloist Evgeny Kissin, was ‘yes, maybe’.” [New York Post]