Opera Review: A Piece of Fairy Cake

Joyce DiDonato sings a radiant Cendrillon at the Met.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The lighting department: Joyce DiDonata as Cinderella in Massenet's Cendrillon.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2018 The Metropolitan Opera.

At the end of the 2014 season, the mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato climbed atop a wedding cake at the end of Rossini's La Cenerentola, a role in which she caused a sensation at the Metropolitan Opera. This month, Ms. DiDonato returned to the stage of America's largest opera house--and to the ballrooms of a very familiar fairy tale--to sing the title role in Cendrillon, the 1899 adaptation of the Cinderella story by Jules Massenet.

Concert Review: Coming Down to Earth

The Royal Concertgebouw plays Bruch and Mahler. 
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Violinist Janine Jansen played the Bruch Concerto No. 1 at Carnegie Hall
on Thursday night. Photo courtesy Decca/UMG.

The second night of the Royal Concertgebouw's 2018 stand at Carnegie Hall did not scale the same dizzying heights as its first. This performance, led by music director Daniele Gatti featured the Dutch ensemble setting aside the cosmic considerations of Bruckner for the earthier world of a composer that has proved even more popular: Gustav Mahler.

DVD Review: The Killer Wore Furs

Verdi's Attila from the Mariinsky Theater.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Barbarian beefcake: Ildar Abdrazakov in the title role of Verdi's Attila.
Photo © 2010 The Mariinsky Theater.

For more than a century, Verdi's eighth opera Attila was sneered at, considered to be one the weakest products of his "galley years". But in the 20th century,  the opera gained new life as a vehicle for a star bass who looks smashing with his shirt off. The latest to take up that tradition is Ildar Abdrazakov. This DVD from the Mariinsky Theater (filmed in December of 2010) preserves Mr. Abdrazakov's barbarian leader for posterity. It is also the first DVD release on the Russian opera house's own label.

Concert Review: Peace, Love and Beethoven

The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra plays Carnegie Hall.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Daniel Barenboim. Photo © 2013 EMI Classics.

This past week at Carnegie Hall featured one of the most eagerly anticipated events of this young calendar year, four concerts by Daniel Barenboim and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. Founded by the Israeli conductor in 1999, the orchestra is an assemblage of young musicians from Spain, Israel, Palestine and other Middle Eastern countries. Its goal: promoting peace, love and understanding between the peoples of the Holy Land through Western classical music.

For these concerts, Mr. Barenboim chose the nine symphonies of Ludwig van Beethoven, which range from wry humor to inconsolable rage, ending in the profound, mystic choral finale of the Ode to Joy. This review is of Saturday performance, which featured the Sixth and Seventh Symphonies, and the Sunday matinee with the Second and the Ninth.

Mr. Barenboim's conducting has been a matter of divided opinion over the course of a long podium career. Like his hero Wilhelm Furtwängler, Mr. Barenboim takes a loose, organic approach to the tempo of a piece, with the result of unusually fast or slow music-making. Occasionally he will bend and scoop the air, drawing a swell from a particular section, or point and thrust with his baton to indicate volume from a woodwind. Otherwise, he appeared almost nonchalant, leaning back and letting the orchestra do their jobs without vigorously beating time.

Concert Review: Taking the Beethoven Cure

Christoph von Dohnányi returns to the New York Philharmonic.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Christoph von Dohnányi. Photo © Decca Classics/Universal Music Group.

When Beethoven's Fifth Symphony was first heard by a Vienna audience, it was on a freezing cold night in the Austrian capital and part of a four and a half hour concert that also featured the premiere of the Sixth. So perhaps it was fitting that temperatures outside Avery Fisher Hall were bitter cold on Friday night for an all-Beethoven concert at the New York Philharmonic.

The program started with Beethoven's Overture to The Creatures of Prometheus. The venerable Christoph von Dohnányi (he's 83 and vigorous) led this brief work with vigor, creating clean orchestral textures to support Beethoven's rhythms and melodic ideas. It was the epitome of this veteran conductor's style: every note of the work's architecture crisply played, clearly balanced and driven forward with firm purpose.

If Prometheus was the young Beethoven's first public success, then the Piano Concerto No. 1 cemented his reputation as a budding orchestral composer and piano soloist. Here, Mr. Dohnányi was joined by pianist Radu Lupu, the eminent Romanian virtuoso who applies his skills strictly to music of the Classical and early Romantic eras.

Opera Review: Unmoored

Otello at the Metropolitan Opera.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

He is nothing if not critical: Falk Struckmann as Iago in the Met's Otello.
Photo © 2012 The Metropolitan Opera.

The Metropolitan Opera's ambitious slate of Verdi operas continued this month with a revival of Verdi's Otello. The plan: to reunite tenor Johan Botha with soprano Renée Fleming, a pairing that proved potent in 2008. But on Tuesday night, Mr. Botha cancelled due to illness, leaving the challenging title role to Russian tenor August Amonov.

Concert Review: Half Nielsen

Alan Gilbert advocates for the concertos of the Danish composer.
(Reposted from The Classical Review.)
by Paul J. Pelkonen

An advocate for Nielsen: conductor Alan Gilbert.
Photo by Chris Lee © 2012 The New York Philharmonic.

In the last three seasons, New York Philharmonic music director Alan 
Gilbert has championed the works of  Carl Nielsen (1865-1931) best
 remembered for his six symphonies. Wednesday night’s concert at Avery Fisher Hall focused
 on Nielsen’s concertos: specifically the 1926 Concerto for Flute (featuring soloist Robert Langevin) and 
the earlier Concerto for Violin with soloist Nikolaj Znaider.

Read the full article by Paul J. Pelkonen, exclusively on The Classical Review!

Opera Review: Divorce, English Style

Read my review of Henry VIII on The Classical Review.

Catherine of Aragon (left) and her lady-in-waiting (and successor) Anne Boleyn.
The two Queens figure prominently in Saint-Saëns' opera Henry VIII.
Photo manipulation by the author. 

Those of you who read this blog know that my writing sometimes appears on sources other than Superconductor. That said, here's a link to my review of the Camille Saint-Saëns opera  Henry VIII, which closed the 2012 Bard Music Festival in regal fashion on Sunday afternoon.

Here's an excerpt, to whet your...axe.

"The jewels in this performance’s crown were the two queens: soprano Ellie Dehn as Catherine of Aragon and mezzo Jennifer Holloway as Anne Boleyn. Dehn began as an icy presence, but that facade cracked as the reality of her situation became apparent. She achieved dramatic heights in the final act, with a long aria that recalled the plight of another operatic queen in a similar circumstance: Elisabeth de Valois in Verdi's Don Carlos. "