Photo: Steven Laxton Publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux has announced the Dec. 7, 2021 release of composer Matthew Aucoin’s debut book “The Impossible Art: Adventures in Opera,” which centers on what he considers the magic of opera: its impossibility. “The operatic ideal, an imagined union of all the human senses and all art forms—music, drama, dance, poetry, painting—is itself an {…}
(Credits: © Julien Benhamou / Kamil Szkopik) The Festival de Pâques will present a night of baroque music to be live-streamed on March 31, 2021 at 8:30 p.m. The performance will star mezzo-soprano Lea Desandre and counter-tenor Jakub Józef Orliński. The two singers will perform works by Jean-Philippe Rameau, Giulio Caccini, Henry Purcell, Georg Friedrich Händel, Thomas Dunford, Reynaldo Hahn, {…}
There is a famous painting by Gustave Moreau called “Thracian Girl Carrying the Head of Orpheus on His Lyre” from 1865. The foreground shows exactly what the title describes. The background is harder to make out: some people are gathered on a cliff, one of them playing an aulos. Small tortoises walk near the Thracian woman’s feet, happily sauntering about {…}
(Credit: Steven Laxton) Throughout the years the story of Orfeo and Euridice has been portrayed on stage in several different works and operas. Gluck’s “Orfeo ed Euridice” has dominated the scene while Monteverdi’s “Orfeo” has slowly seen a resurgence in popularity. But it doesn’t stop there as Haydn, Charpentier, Luigi Rossi and even Offenbach put their mark on the story. {…}
(Credit: Steven Laxton) The Getty Villa Museum will present “Play to Libretto: Sarah Ruhl’s ‘Eurydice’ on Feb. 2, 2020. The reading of the stage place by Sarah Ruhl is part of the LA Opera’s “Eurydice Found,” an LA Festival dedicated to contextualizing the many aspects of the famed Greek myth of Orpheus and his wife Euridice. In addition to a {…}
(Credit: Steven Laxton) The LA Opera is set to showcase the world premiere of composer, conductor, writer, pianist, and 2018 MacArthur Fellow Matthew Aucoin’s “Eurydice.” The company will present six performances with star soprano Danielle de Niese and Joshua Hopkins in leading roles. The cast will also feature Rod Gilfry, John Holiday, Barry Banks, Stacey Tappan, Raehann Bryce-Davis, and Matthew {…}
