(Photo Credit: Israeli Opera House) Taking three years to write, composer Yonatan Cnaan and director Ido Ricklin’s opera, “Theodor: The Unknown Story of Herzl,” is a summarization of Theodor Herzl’s life. It was premiered by the Israeli Opera House in 2023, following the attacks on October 7th, 2023. Conducted by Nimrod David Pfeffer, the evening was powerful and monumental. Luckily, {…}
(Photo Credit: Getty Images) Maria Callas, better known as La Divina and the immortal muse of art, died on September 16, 1977, having lived a life that no-one else could have lived—or, better phrased, survived. Having sung in practically every major house in the world; recorded a enormous quantity of material from Verdi, Puccini, and Bellini, to Wagner, Spontini, Bizet, Rossini, {…}
After 140 years, Wagner’s final opera, “Parsifal,” first performed at the second Bayreuth Festival in 1882, finally got its Mexican premiere in April of this year. While not quite an opera—it was defined by Wagner as an ‘Bühnenweihfestspiel,’ or a ‘stage festival play’ with a sacred focus—Wagner’s final piece testifies to his consummate understanding of opera as not just a {…}
The nature of cinematography and (classical) singing is long-winded. From some of the early experiments like the acclaimed 1927 film, “The Jazz Singer” by Warner Bros, to the emergence of new giants like Metro-Goldwyn-Mayers Studios (MGM) and their copious amount of opera-laced films like their 1935 film, “A Night at The Opera,” opera on film has had a long development. {…}
The aftermath of World War One was defined in Europe, quite remarkably, by multiple, simultaneous cultural advances and experiments. These revolutionary developments ranged from classical music shedding its attachment to romantic tendencies and exploring expressionism, through art embracing the surrealist extensions of the mystical, to cinematic developments, and even architectural conflicts between modernism and classicism. In the Germanic world, suffering {…}
What does an unfinished opera have in common with a historical landmark, Chinese cultural history, thousands of singers, eloquent music, and expert dramaturgy? In 1998, just like Wagner’s trilogy, these disparate elements come together to form a work of epic proportion in Zhang Yimou and Zubin Mehta’s collaborative project, “Turandot at the Forbidden City.” In this article, we will explore {…}
Albert Edward Sutherland’s film “Champagne Waltz” (1937) is many things. A film where jazz coolness and Viennese waltz culture combine in a forceful yet graceful dance of push and pull, punctuated by a story about a romance born from rivalry as two cultures butt heads before ultimately capitulating to the other. Starring soprano Gladys Swarthout, whose singing in the film was {…}
(Photo Credits: H. Paul Moon) Performed among the foliage and resplendences of Campos Community Garden in New York City, one of a myriad of analogous respites, sanctuaries if you will, from the tyranny of cement and metal, the monotonous timbres and assaults of the urban soundscape, and the droning apathy and cold banality of inner-city dwelling, the caressing melodiousness of {…}
Having recently become a Knight and awarded the prestigious, “Ordre des Arts et des Lettres,” baritenor Michael Spyres has quickly arisen as one of modern opera’s central luminaries, sensuously consonant with others like the ineffable Sondra Radvanovsky, the Puccini grande dame Angela Gheorghiu, Roberto Alagna, Susan Graham, Mikhail Kruglov, Allan Clayton, Elīna Garanča, and Javier Camarena to name only a {…}
The amount of films about opera and that use opera are endless, and yet, as it happens, time and time again the same studio seems to make an appearance. But, more importantly, the operatic stars at the center of these films seem to be just as copious as the titles. Completed by Austrian director Rudolph Maté in 1959, the film {…}
Having grown up with opera in the traditional format, meaning either you go and sit quietly while the opera is performed and only then do you show your adoration or you perform in the opera following a very strict set of procedures which you’re lucky if you get to extend as a soloist. My gut reaction to opera innovation is {…}