Tetsurō Ban News
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2024-04-25
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2024-03-02 09:03:00
Shamus O'Brien: withdrawn by the composer for political reasons, Stanford's most popular opera languished in the 20th century but all that seems set to change
Retrospect Opera's recording of Stanford's Shamus O'Brien in rehearsalCharles Villiers Stanford’s opera Shamus O'Brien premiered in 1896 in London. It was easily his most popular opera, running for over 80 performances in the West End before going on an extensive tour in Britain and Ireland, then in 1897 it also enjoyed a two-month run in New York. An explicitly Irish work, set against the backdrop of the Irish Rebellion of 1798, Stanford withdrew the opera shortly before the First World War. As the politics of Home Rule intensified in the 1910s, Stanford, an ardent Unionist, worried that the opera might foment Irish nationalism and anti-English sentiment; the Ban effectively remained in place until his death in March 1924.King Baggot and Vivian Prescott in the 1912 silent film Shamus O'BrienBut after that, the opera returned to the stage and was broadcast by the BBC in the 1930s. Since then the work has […]
2024-02-01 04:30:00
Recent Releases No. 70 (CD Reviews)
by Karl NehringHaydn: 48 Piano Sonatas. Daniel-Ben Pienaar, piano. AVIE AV257In yet another project undertaken in the dark days of the COVID-19 pandemic, South African pianist Daniel-Ban Pienaar has produced this imposing box set containing eight compact discs on which he has recorded as the cover declares “the 39 authenticated multi-movement solo keyboard works from 1765 onwards and nine earlier works presumed to be Haydn’s, or probably his, by the vast majority of scholars.” These works include: Four early Sonatas (listed in Haydn’s Entwurf-Katalog of 1765); Six Sonatas (1765-1772); Six Sonatas dedicated to Prince Nicolas Esterházy (c. 1773, published in 1774); Six Sonatas (1774-?76); Six Sonata dedicated to Katharina and Marianna Auenbrugger (published in 1880); Three Sonatas (published in London in 1783); Three Sonatas for Princess Maria Esterházy (published in 1784); Two Sonatas (1789-90); Three English Sonatas (1794-95); plus Variations in F minor (1793) and nine early Sonatas widely presumed to be by Haydn. Pienaar’s […]
2024-01-31 08:20:00
Jedem Krieger sein eigen Heim: Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht's Zu Potsdam unter den Eichen and its original political inspiration
Zu Potsdam unter den Eichen: German news photograph from 1926 of the anti-war demonstration that inspired Kurt Weill & Bertolt Brecht's powerful pieceKurt Weill's piece for unaccompanied four-part male voice ensemble, Zu Potsdam under den Eichen was premiered in Berlin in 1929. Using a text by Brecht, the piece was part of their Berliner Requiem (premiered on Radio Frankfurt in May 1929), but the piece had an independent life, being performed in November 1929 in Berlin by the Schubertchor, conductor Karl Rankl.Brecht's poem directly refers to an historical event, an anti-war demonstration in 1926 by the Roter Frontkämpferbund (RFK), a far-left paramilitary organization affiliated with the Communist Party during the Weimar Republic (see the newspaper photograph above). According to newspaper reports, an artillery helmet, combat weapons and war honours had been placed on a coffin carried as part of the demonstration. The inscription on the coffin, which as can be seen in the […]
2024-01-17 17:37:00
Così fan tutte, Komische Oper, 14 January 2024
SchillertheaterImages: Monika RittershausFiordiligi – Penny Sofraniadou Dorabella – Susan Zarrabi Guglielmo – Hubert Zapiór Ferrando – Caspar Singh Despina – Alma Sadé Don Alfonso – Seth Carico Sempronio – Amer El-Erwadi Tizio – Goran JurenecDirector, set and costume designer – Kirill SerebrennikovImplementation of direction, choreography – Evgeny KulaginStaff director (Spielleitung) – Martha JurowskiCo-costume designer – Tatyana DolmatovskayaAssistant set designer – Nikolay SimonovDramaturgy – Beate Breidenbach, Maximilian HagemeyerLighting – Olaf FreeseVideo – Ilya ShagalovChoral Soloists of the Komische Oper (director: Jean-Christophe Charron) Orchestra of the Komische Oper Erina Yashima (conductor) There should never be a run-of-the-mill Così fan tutte: Mozart’s most exquisite opera, arguably his profoundest, and perhaps ultimately his greatest. (It is, at any rate, my current favourite, and not only because I heard it last.) This was certainly not it, whether in origin, direction, or performance. Indeed, this staging from Berlin’s Komische Oper is an outstanding achievement in almost every […]
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