Beverly Bower News
opera singer (1925-2002)
Commemorations 2025 (Birth: Beverly Bower)
- soprano
- United States of America
- opera singer
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2024-04-24
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2021-07-06 17:00:00
St John’s, Waterloo Siegmund – Brian Smith WaltersSieglinde – Gweneth-Ann Rand Hunding – Simon Wilding Wotan – Simon Thorpe Brünnhilde – Cara McHardy Fricka, Waltraute – Harriet Williams Gerhilde – Jacqueline Varsey Ortlinde – Philippa Boyle Schwertleite – Rhonda Browne Helmwige – Natasha Jouhl Siegrune – Carolyn Dobbin Grimgerde – Katharine Taylor-Jones Rossweisse – Angharad Lyddon Rosemary Taylor (clarinets)Jo Harris (trumpet) William Brown (trombone, bass trumpet) James Bower (percussion) Peter Selwyn (piano, music director) Wagner’s dramas, one might think, would be among the last things to return to our cultural lives. In a way, they doubtless will. For obvious reasons, a full-scale staging of Die Meistersinger would be a tall order right now, though Bayreuth proposes a few performances this summer of Barrie Kosky’s staging (widely lauded, though certainly not by me). Covent Garden has reopened its doors with Mozart: La clemenza di Tito and, now, Don Giovanni (review forthcoming), […]
2020-10-10 04:49:00
Metropolitan Opera at Home – Wagner’s Die Walkure. October 8, 2020.
Original performance date – April 8, 1989. Conductor – James Levine; Brunnhilde – Hildegard Behrens, Wotan – James Morris, Sieglinde – Jessye Norman, Fricka – Christa Ludwig, Siegmund – Gary Lakes, Hunding – Kurt Moll, Helmwige – Katarina Ikonomu, Orlinde – Martha Thigpen, Gerhilde – Pyramid Sellers, Waltrude – Joyce Castle, Siegrune – Diane Kesling, Rossweisse -Jacalyn Bower, Grimgerde – Wendy Hillhouse, Schwertleite – Sondra Kelly. Production - Otto Schenk, Set & Projection Design - Gunther Schneider-Siemssen This was the first time I saw Jessye Norman - whose name is well-known in the music world - in concert, one recorded over 30 years ago. Both Norman and Behrens died in their early 70s, and evidently the Ring set fell on Behrens (she hurt her spinal cord, but recovered). The four operas being broadcast were not from the same cycle. This one was a year earlier than the other three. We […]
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Royal Opera House
2016-11-14 18:20:18
Les Contes d’Hoffmann musical highlight: The Doll Aria
Sofia Fomina, Christophe Mortagne and Vittorio Grigòlo in Schlesinger’s Les Contes d'Hoffmann, The Royal Opera © 2016 ROH. Photograph by Catherine Ashmore ‘Les oiseaux dans la charmille’, also known as the Doll Aria from Les Contes d’Hoffmann , is infamously difficult to sing. It is sung in Act I by Olympia, a mechanical doll who the hapless Hoffmann believes to be human. For much of the act, Olympia simply says ‘oui’ (yes) to anything asked of her, but Offenbach more than makes up for this in her aria. Written for the French soprano Adèle Isaac – a star of Paris’s Opéra-Comique known for her interpretations of challenging roles such as Marie (La Fille du régiment ), Isabelle (Robert le diable ) and Juliette (Roméo et Juliette ) – it is a virtuoso tour-de-force, packed with stratospheric coloratura. Where does it take place in the opera? The Doll Aria takes […]
2015-10-24 06:35:00
For decades Antonin Dvorák´s "Rusalka" was one of the operas in the wish list of many addicts to the genre but it remained unpremièred. The long wait has finally ended: Buenos Aires Lírica has presented it as the last title of its season, and in Czech, as it should be. In fact, I am privy to an information that wasn´t public: in 1973 Antonio Pini (Artistic Director) planned to offer it in a Spanish translation at the Colón (the breakthrough for a Czech opera in the original language came later, with Janácek´s "The Makropoulos case", in 1986). As Pini was unceremoniously kicked out as Artistic Director in August of that same year, the project went down the drain. […]
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