Antonio Alba News
Spanish composer (1873-1940)
- guitar
- Spain
- composer, musician, guitarist
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2024-03-26
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2023-12-31 11:29:00
A visit to Bayreuth coupled with a Ring in Berlin made this year's operatic victor well-nigh inevitable. Mozart, though, was not so far off, with a couple of live 'firsts': Il re pastore and Ascanio in Alba. A somewhat restricted chronological range too, with no Monteverdi, nor indeed anything before Purcell. As usual, I have included concert and staged performances, and anything treated as an opera (e.g. the Komische Oper's staging of Henze's oratorio, Das Floss der Medusa).11 Wagner 8 Mozart 4 Strauss 2 Bizet, Handel, Puccini 1 Berg, Cherubini, Dvořák, Bushra El-Turk, Henze, Humperdinck, Janáček, Korngold, Edward Lambert, Martinů, Mussorgsky, Purcell, Rossini, Saariaho, Schoenberg, Tchaikovsky
2023-12-18 19:35:00
Ascanio in Alba, Oper Frankfurt, 17 December 2023
Bockenheimer DepotVenus – Kateryna Kasper Ascanio – Cecilia Hall Silvia – Karolina Bengtsson Aceste – Andrew Kim Fauno – Anna Nekhames Secretary – Aijan Ryskulova Bodyguard – Stefan Biaesch Silvia’s friends – Valentina Ziegler, Isabel Casás RamaNina Brazier (director)Christoph Fischer (set design)Henriette Hübschmann (costumes)Jonathan Pickers (lighting)Deborah Einspieler (dramaturgy)Vocal Ensemble (recorded)Frankfurt Opera and Museum OrchestraAlden Gatt (conductor)Images: Monika RittershausAceste (Andrew Kim), Silvia (Karolina Bengtsson), Venus (Kateryna Kasper), Ascanio (Cecelia Hall), Fauno (Anna Nekhames) It is not every day I get to hear a Mozart opera live for the first time. And yet, this year 2023, some time after my first year of opera-going, I have done so twice: Il re pastore at this year’s Salzburg Festival, albeit in concert performance, and now Oper Frankfurt’s new Ascanio in Alba, directed by Nina Brazier and conducted by Alden Gatt. Two to go, but another two ticked off the list—not that I ever wish […]
2023-11-17 19:46:00
First comes the Overture to Il Ruggiero, Johann Adolph Hasse’s – and Pietro Metastasio’s – final work from Orlando furioso. Originally commanded by Maria Theresa for the marriage of Maria Antonia/Marie Antoinette and the French Dauphin, the work's libretto was not completed in time, so it served instead for the 1771 marriage of the Empress's son Archduke Ferdinand Charles, Governor of the Duchy of Milan, to Maria Beatrice, daughter of Ercole (Hercules) III d’Este, Duke of Modena, and his estranged wife, Maria Teresa, Duchess of Massa and Princess of Carrara in her own right. As heiress to four further Italian territories, Maria Beatrice offered an advantageous match for the Habsburgs, and had originally been intended for one of Ferdinand's elder brothers, Archduke Peter Leopold (now Duke of Tuscany and later Emperor Leopold II). Ferdinand and Maria Beatrice had been engaged since childhood, the treaty thereby concluded recognising Ferdinand as Ercole's […]
2023-11-17 08:38:00
An eclectic mix of 18th century opera in vivid performances: Anthony Roth Costanzo and La Nuova Musica at Wigmore Hall
Anthony Roth Costanzo (Photo: Matthu Placek)Mozart: arias from Mitridate, Re di Ponto and Ascanio in Alba, Ombra Felice; Gluck: arias from Orfeo ed Euridice, suite from Don Juan; Rameau, Boulogne; Anthony Roth Costanzo, La Nuova Musica, David Bates; Wigmore Hall15 November 2023Arias from early Mozart operas and from a Gluck's classic in vivid performances from the American countertenor supported by wonderful playing from La Nuova MusicaDebuts all round on Wednesday 15 November 2023, as both countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo and ensemble La Nuova Musica, directed by David Bates made their Wigmore Hall debuts in a concert that mixed arias from Mozart's two early operas Mitridate Re di Ponto and Ascanio in Alba with the concert aria Ombra felice and arias from Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice, plus instrumental music by Joseph Boulogne, Rameau and Gluck.It was a programme that seemed to pull in two directions at once, however if we didn't worry about what one piece […]
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