Isaac Schwartz News
Soviet and Russian composer
- classical music
- Russia, Soviet Union
- composer, film score composer
Last update
2024-03-19
Refresh
2024-02-19 16:02:25
Alban Berg, Part III, 2024
This Week in Classical Music: February 5, 2024. Alban Berg, Part III, Lulu. Frank Wedekind was a famous (and controversial) German playwright. Among his more famous plays were two, Earth Spirit, written in 1895, and Pandora's Box, from 1904, usually paired together and called Lulu plays, after the name of the protagonist. For a while, the plays were banned for presumed obscenity. Berg saw the plays in the early 1900s in Berlin, with Wedekind himself playing Jack the Ripper in Pandora's Box. He was much taken by the plays, and some quarter century later, following the success of his first opera, Wozzeck, decided to write another one, based on Wedekind’s plays. The storyline of the plays is convoluted: Lulu, an impoverished girl, is saved by a rich publisher, Dr. Schön, from life on the streets. Schön brings her up and makes her his lover. Later, he marries Lulu off to […]
2024-01-25 14:00:55
Just call me ‘Engel’
Chris’s Cache previews Lise Davidsen‘s concert with six sopranos singing the five Wesendonck Lieder , plus a tenor interloper (Jonas Kaufmann, of course), and a mezzo (Hanna Schwarz )
2024-01-11 10:54:00
Jenůfa, Staatsoper Unter den Linden, 7 January 2024
Grandmother Buryja – Hanna Schwarz Kostelnička Buryja – Rosie Aldridge Jenůfa – Vida Miknevičiūtė Laca Klemeń – Stephan Rügamer Števa Buryja – Pavol Breslik Foreman – Grigory Shkarupa Jano – Victoria Randem Barena – Adriane Queiroz Mayor – David Oštrek Mayor’s Wife – Natalia Sckrycka Karolka – Maria Kokareva Herdswoman – Ekaterina Chayka-Rubinstein Auntie – Rebecka Wallroth Voices – Olga Vilenskaia, Ben BloomfieldDirector – Damiano MichielettoRevival director – Marcin ŁakomickiSet designs – Paolo FantinCostumes – Carlo TetiLighting – Alessandro CarlettiChoreography – Thomas Wilhelm Staatsopernchor Berlin (chorus director: Dani Juris)Staatskapelle BerlinAxel Kober (conductor)Images: Bernd Uhlig (from 2021 premiere, with different cast)Damiano Michieletto’s 2021 production of Jenůfa, now receiving its first revival, offers a relatively straightforward retelling of the story without prettifying or sentimentalising. Paolo Fantin’s set designs are stark: semi-transparent, enabling one to see, as in a small rural community, most of what is going on, whilst still maintaining some degree of […]
2024-01-01 11:16:00
A time to look back
The late Keel Watson as Wotan in Wagner's Die Walküre with Regents Opera in 2023 (Photo: Steve GregsonNew Year is always a time to look back and remember. 2023 saw us publishing 627 articles, from our review of the Dunedin Consort's 2022 New Year's Eve concert at Wigmore Hall to our note about Adam Whitmore and Phoenix Consort's crowdfunding for their debut disc of music by Alex Campkin. A total of 70 opera reviews, over 80 concert reviews, and over 40 interviews. You can explore further in our recently updated archives of live reviews, record reviews, and interviews.Overseas events that we covered included Le piano symphonique festival in Lucerne, Britten's Peter Grimes in Paris, Handel's Saul at the Komische Oper Berlin, Christoph Loy's production of Zandonai's Francesca da Rimini at Deutsche Oper Berlin, Carmen at Oper im Steinbruch in Austria, the launch of the Dresden Music Festival's historically informed Ring cycle […]
or
- timeline: Composers (Europe).
- Indexes (by alphabetical order): S...