This month’s Off the Beaten Track explores the newly released recording of “The Wake World: A Tale for Babes and Sucklings,” a one-act opera composed by Los Angeles-based composer/librettist David Hertzberg and inspired by Aleister Crowley’s work of the same name. The recording is the first opera released under the Tzadik label. Founder and executive producer of Tzadik, John Zorn {…}
On its west facade Rouen Cathedral features a bas-relief of Salome dancing on her hands for the Tetrarch and his guests. In a luring form of “danse macabre,” she thus seals the fate of the Baptist whose execution is shown in the following scene. Flaubert is said to have derived inspiration for his recounting of the Biblical story in the {…}
(Credit: Russell Duncan/Opera Rara/ROH) A little over a year ago, Opera Rara, whose commitment is to record unknown, forgotten and rarely performed works from the 19th century, released a reconstructed version of Donizetti’s then-never performed “L’ange de Nisida.” This world premiere recording reveals the work to be an authentic Bel Canto jewel, providing deep immersion into Donizetti’s style of composition {…}
(Photo: Igor Studio) The countertenor Franco Fagioli’s new CD, entitled “Veni, Vidi, Vinci,” turns the spotlight onto the now relatively ignored composer Leonardo Vinci. During the early 18th century Vinci was a leading figure in the Neapolitan school; he is known to have influenced the works of Pergolesi, Hasse and Handel, collaborated closely with Metastasio, worked with the leading singers {…}
No doubt the legacy of “Cavalleria Rusticana” is reaching far back into the history of recording; from the 1909 version of the Odeon Orchestra to the milestones of the LP era. Its prominence has not even slowed with the advent of the compact disc or indeed the reprinting of forgotten lore, including the 1938 performance of Lina Bruna Rasa. One {…}
The recording of “Pepito,” a comedic opera in one act with music by Nicolas Lell Benavides and libretto by Marella Martin Koch, is set to release on May 1, 2020 and it is an amusing, quick-hit of delightful opera worth a listen. This compact, 20-minute chamber opera tells the story of Pepito, a shelter dog meeting a husband and wife who {…}
Long is the shadow that Enrico Caruso and his recordings cast on the history of singing. At a critical juncture of technological advance, they inspired not only an epigonal school of tenors (whose famous “sobs” entered the mainstream of verismo singing) but also a whole array of cultural byproducts that range from semi-fictional biopics to Lucio Dalla’s global hit. On {…}
Little could Met audiences know about the full fledged lyricism of Petr Nekoranec when he took on the spieltenor role of the Doyen in the company’s premiere production of “Cendrillon” in 2018. Certainly, the Doyen has earned his keep in the eclectic repertoire of Jules Massenet and the long tradition of French opéra comique; it remains, however, a somewhat ungrateful {…}
(Credit: Anja Koehler) The Bregenz Summer Opera Festival was founded in 1946, just one year after the end of the second World War. It offers a great variety of musical events in four different venues, but it is in the “Seebühne” or floating stage, set in a platform over the Costanze lake where the big opera performances take place in {…}
