“Charlie Parker’s Yardbird” features music by saxophone virtuoso Daniel Schnyder and a libretto by playwright Bridgette A. Wimberly. Since it premiered in 2015 at Opera Philadelphia, several the work has premiered with a number of companies, including the Lyric Opera of Chicago and the English National Opera. Perhaps the most interesting locale for “Yardbird” was its presentation at Harlem’s Apollo Theatre {…}
St. Iberius Church on Wexford’s North Main Street is a delightful mid-18th-century building, with a Georgian interior, delightfully decorated in wedgewood blue and white. A balcony runs around three sides, providing seating for the congregation on two levels. With its intimate atmosphere and excellent acoustics, it makes an ideal venue for Wexford Festival Opera’s lunchtime recitals, given each day by {…}
On November 4, 2018, the Hungarian State Opera’s tour featured a gala celebrating the music and dance of their homeland. I was surprised to learn that the date chosen for this celebration marks the 68th year since the Soviet intervention of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, wherein a large number of Hungarians gave their lives for their country against the {…}
Arrigo Boito’s “Mefistofele” is a work of glorious moments that has yet to find a stable place in the standard repertoire. Despite being derived from Goethe’s famed “Faust,” great arias for the major leads, and an amazing part for any opera house’s chorus, it has never been as popular as other adaptations of the same source material(ie: Gounod’s “Faust”). In {…}
Tchaikovsky’s final opera, “Iolanta,” sung in Russian with English supertitles, received a heartfelt and naturalistic production by the Chicago Opera Theater on November 11, 2018, at the Studebaker Theater in the Fine Arts Building, Chicago. With a libretto by the composer’s brother, Modest, “Iolanta” is a 85-minute opera with four scenes presented seamlessly in one act. It explores themes of {…}
The first thing that comes to mind when seeing that a “double bill” has been scheduled is often, “not another ‘Cav/Pag,’ not another example of lazy programming.” Luckily, however, this is the Wexford Festival and there is no chance of such a combination taking to the stage here, where innovative programming is the company’s raison d’etre. Deciding on a pair {…}
Friday night of the Hungarian State Opera’s New York tour saw the performance of Karl Goldmark’s opera “The Queen of Sheba.” This under-performed work is firmly entrenched in the spirit of Romanticism, as Goldmark was a contemporary of figures such as Wagner, Berlioz, Rossini, Chopin, Verdi, and more. Many aspects of the opera, such as the plot, and structure of {…}
As the Hungarian State Opera continues its New York tour at Lincoln Center, the second night saw a double feature of performances from Hungarian composers: “Mario and the Magician” by Janos Vajda, and “Bluebeard’s Castle” by Bela Bartok. What followed was an enthralling showcase of the talents of the company, wherein the artists powerfully brought to life the methods, and {…}
“Siegfried” may be the most underappreciated among the operas of Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle. In many ways, it advances the plot minimally compared to the others and has the feature of being musically distinct within itself because Wagner composed its third and final act 12 years after the first two. Yet crucially, it serves to unite the love duo of {…}