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2018-12-06 07:27:01
French collection
Jean-Philippe Rameau, Antoine Forqueray, Christophe Moyreaus, Pierre-Claude Fouquet, Francois Couperin, and Joseph-Nicolas-Pancrace Royer; Katarzyna Kowalik Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 3 December 2018 Star rating: 3.5 (★★★½) 18th century harpsichord pieces in a recital full of vivid colourOn this disc, the London-based harpsichordist of Polish origin Katarzyna Kowalik presents a selection of French 18th century music for harpsichord starting with Rameau's Premiere Livre de Pieces de Clavecin and then moving through pieces by Antoine Forqueray, Christophe Moyreaus, Pierre-Claude Fouquet, Francois Couperin, and Joseph-Nicolas-Pancrace Royer. Amongst other Katarzyna Kowalik studied with Christophe Rousset and Skip Sempe, and I first came across her when she was a member of the 2015 Handel House Talent Scheme. On this disc she plays a 2012 harpsichord by Andrew Garlick after an instrument by Jean-Claude Goyon from 1749. The first thing I noticed was the wonderfully resonant and sonorous sound of the instrument, […]
2018-01-18 01:24:00
San Francisco Opera, 2018-19
The season is pretty much what I thought it would be. Orlando Furioso (Vivaldi) turned out to be Orlando (Handel), and I'm fine with that. I'd heard that Brian Jagde wouldn't be singing in SF next season, but no! There he is as Cavaradossi again (he was in the last two bring-ups, Gheorghiu/Racette /Moore and Haroutounian).I am....sorta dubious about some of this. Matthew Polenzani as Don José? Um. Marco Berti as anything? He "withdrew for personal reasons" after two performances of the 2014-15 Norma, to be replaced by Russell Thomas for the remaining five and was pretty terrible in the last Trovatore, with Sondra Radvanovsky and the late Dmitri Hvorostovsky.On the other hand, the winning trio of Radvanovsky, Jamie Barton, and Thomas is back for Roberto Devereux, and they're joined by Artur Rucinski, whom everybody loved in last year's Traviata.Nice to see Rusalka back, and of course not in the by-now-moth-eaten Schenk, though […]
2017-02-04 01:52:32
Sleeping with the fishes
With a cast of stellar singers and maladroit direction by Mary Zimmerman, Dvorák’s Rusalka debuts in a new production at the Metropolitan Opera. The libretto, by Jaroslav Kvapil (based upon the fairy tale Undine by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué) is probably most recognizable as an iteration of The Little Mermaid, a folktale made famous by Hans Christian Andersen in the 19th century, and the wonderful world of Disney in the 20th. The plot, rather cruel in its measured progress towards tragedy, beguiles just as it withholds emotional closure. Rusalka, which means “water spirit” in Slavic, longs for a human prince. In an effort to secure his affection, she has the witch Jezibaba transform her into a biped, complete with a human soul. However, the physical conversion comes with a price: Rusalka’s voice is silent on human ears, and she must secure the unwavering affection of the prince, or […]
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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