“National Music Drama” in five acts. Running Time: 2 hours 43 minutes. Another post I did a while ago, probably my last until March. All of the posts are scheduled randomly and so I finished most of them weeks or even months before they will appear. Sir Denis Forman did review the Shostakovich 1959 orchestration […]
Opera in four acts. Running Time: 2 hours 34 minutes. Self portrait of Salvator Rosa, 1647. Between the unparalleled (somewhat bizarre?) success of Il Guarany, the disaster of the first version of Fosca, and the fiasco that was Maria Tudor, Gomes did have one undisputed success with both the critics and the public in Salvator Rosa. Although it plays very fast and loose […]
Opera in two acts. Running Time: 2 hours 15 minutes. Modern day fortress at Golkonda, India. This is another request from Lorenzo Moog. Please make requests, I love to know what readers want. Otherwise I am just randomly reviewing operas at whim. SETTING: The Indian city of Golconda, mythic times although France exists. The plot is based […]
Tragiskt sångdrama or “tragic song drama” in four acts. Running Time: 2 hours 38 minutes. Hopefully I have tapped into an interest for Danish-language operas here because this was a review that was very fun to write, and I would really like comments about this one. This is actually the very first Danish opera I […]
Grand opera en cinq actes et sept tableaux. Running Time: 2 hours 40 minutes. Okay, so I have been depriving you, my readers of something French… here we have the grandmother of French Grand Opera! It is rare that one can say an opera caused the birthing of an entire nation, but in this case […]
Opera-Ballo in four acts. Running time: 2 hours 45 minutes. The opera with everything! Race relations, interracial love, colonialism, massive explosions involving huge amounts of TNT that blow up entire Portuguese castles in the Brazilian rainforest, yes, it is that one! It also has incredibly weird vocal casting: all but two of the nine soloists […]
Opera in two acts. Running Time: 2 hours 32 minutes. The first (and only) disaster in an otherwise brilliantly successful career, Zaira is the black mark in the oeuvre of Bellini. Much of its music was recycled to great success the following year in I Capuleti e i Montecchi, so was the failure of Parma as bad as its […]
