James Melton News
American opera singer (1904-1961)
Commemorations 2024 (Birth: James Melton)
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- United States of America
- opera singer
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2024-04-25
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2022-02-05 01:29:10
2022-01-01 00:38:23
Photo from the 1972 Atlanta Treemonisha pre-performance. (Sedalia Ragtime Archive) The Syncopated Times Larry Melton December 30, 2021 I surprised myself when I placed the phone back on its port and just sat to let the inspiring emotion of the previous conversation mellow. I had just been visiting with T.J. Anderson, about the first concert performance of Scott Joplin’s Treemonisha in Atlanta, in 1972. The venue was Symphony Hall, with the Atlanta Symphony directed by Robert Shaw. Morehouse University had produced the modern premiere under the leadership of Dr. Wendell Whalen. The call brought back a flood of memories and a great deal for me to ponder. Dr. Anderson had orchestrated Joplin’s score that William Bolcom edited with “slight assistance,” from Dr. Anderson. It had not been an easy undertaking for the men due to a […]
2020-01-08 15:37:00
Hänsel und Gretel, Deutsche Oper, 4 January 2020
Images from the 1997 premiere: © Bettina Stöß Peter – Noel Bouley Gertrud – Heidi Melton Hänsel – Jana Kurucová Gretel – Alexandra Hutton Witch – Andrew Dickinson Sandman, Dew Fairy – Flurina Stucki Andreas Homoki (director) Wolfgang Gussmann (designs) Silke Sense (revival director) Children’s Chorus (chorus director: Christian Lindhorst) of the Deutsche Oper, Berlin Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper, Berlin Donald Runnicles (conductor) A lovely way to open my operatic year: a new—to me—production of an opera of which I never tire, Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel. Andreas Homoki’s Deutsche Oper production was first seen in 1997 and has clearly done sterling service for a mixed audience of children and adults. (There are matinee performances intended more specifically for families, but there were plenty of well-behaved—often far more so than the adults—children on the evening I attended.) There are clearly limits to […]
2019-04-01 00:52:00
The Syncopated Times: Scott Joplin’s Treemonisha: The First Stagings Remembered
Photo from the 1972 Atlanta Treemonisha pre-performance. (Sedalia Ragtime Archive) The Syncopated Times Larry Melton March 29, 2019 Goin’ Around with Treemonisha Imagine the privilege of sitting a few rows behind Eubie Blake on the night of January 28, 1972, and watching his whole body move to the music of Scott Joplin at the Atlanta premiere of Treemonisha, orchestrated by T.J. Anderson. Eubie was kind enough to autograph my program that night and again at a reprised performance with William Bolcom’s orchestration on August 15, 1972, at the first Wolf Trap Farm’s Filene Center. (Yes, the Center that burned in 1982.) The story of Treemonisha encapsulates Joplin’s own story in a way and is the great drama of ragtime lore. Readers of TST undoubtedly know the story well or at the very least a Wikipedia version. Therefore, I won’t detail too […]
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