Concert Review: Two Tickets, No Paradise

Gianandrea Noseda conducts at Carnegie Hall.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

Gianandrea Noseda. Photo © 2017 Fondazione Teatro Regio di Torino.

The Carnegie Hall calendar is released every year in the final week of January, but not everything on that august and immense document comes to fruition. The concert originally planned for this Sunday would have featured Gianandrea Noseda conducting Verdi’s grand opera  I Vespri Siciliani in its five-act entirety with the Teatro Regio di Torino. Its substitute: a two part choral concert with Mr. Noseda leading the National Symphony Orchestra, who are based in Washington D.C. at the Kennedy Center.

The Feast of Seven: The Best Opera Recordings of 2018

Seven notable opera recordings in seven different styles.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The seven best opera recordings of 2018. Art © the respective classical music labels.

Although Superconductor mostly features coverage of live performances, recordings are and continue to be an important part of the classical music genre: the "permanent"...well...record of art that will endure in physical form for decades or even centuries after a performer has moved on to whatever awaits. I don't get to write about recordings anywhere near as often as I would like to, but that doesn't mean I don't listen to and pay attention to what is new.

To kick off our year-ending "Best of 2018" series, here are seven memorable opera recordings for 2018. Chronological order by style. And this year, there's no Wagner or Strauss!):

Recordings Review: Babylon and On...and On

The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment records Semiramide. (All of it.)
by Paul J. Pelkonen

It's good to be the queen: Albina Shagimuratova is Semiramide.
Photo courtesy Askonas Holt.

Time has not always been kind to the opera seria of Gioacchino Rossini. While his comedies, led by Il Barbiere di Siviglia are regularly presented on stages around the world, one is less likely to encounter his serious works. Among the finest of these is Semiramide, his 34th opera and his last opera written (in 1823) for an Italian theater. It is the subject of a new and exhaustive recording of the complete score, by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment conducted by Sir Mark Elder. Made in the summer of 2016 at London's Henry Wood Hall, and sprawling on four discs, this four-hour Semiramide offers windows into two different operatic worlds: Rossini's own era and the boom period where studio recordings were common.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: Semiramide

Angela Meade seizes power in ancient Babylon
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Angela Meade (center) is the titular Queen Semiramide in the Met's Rossini grand opera.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2018 The Metropolitan Opera.

The Metropolitan Opera presents Semiramide, a four-act Italian grand opera by Rossini that was the composer's final opera for the stage of his native country. Angela Meade sings the daunting title role, a bravura showpiece for the soprano voice.

Opera Review: It Ain't Exactly Shakespeare

Loft Opera mounts the Rossini Otello.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

A word before you go: Otello (Bernard Holcomb) assaults Desdemona (Cecilia Lopez) in Rossini's opera.
Photo by Robert Altman for LoftOpera.

LoftOpera opened its 2017 season last night, choosing LightSpace Studio, a high-ceilinged, white-walled warehouse on Flushing Avenue in Bushwick as the venue for the company's first staging of Rossini's Otello. Yes, you read that right. There's a (now mostly forgotten) Rossini version of this Shakespeare story, written back in 1816 and a pinnacle of the repertory before it was eclipsed by the Giuseppe Verdi opera from 1887. This performance marked the first New York staging in forty years.

Opera Review: A Close Shave

Rossini's Barbiere cuts it up in Kanazawa.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

This store is in Minnesota but Rossini's Barbiere was open for business in Kanazawa, Japan last month.

Gioachino Rossini’s ‘Il Barbiere di Siviglia’ remains one of the most popular operas in the western canon, with a two hundred year performing tradition. On Sunday, February 20, that tradition came to the west coast of Japan, as the Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa offered a semi staged, concert version of the Italian masterpiece, under the baton of Marc Minkowski. The performance, in the OEK's gorgeous, modern mid-sized concert hall, featured columnar LED titles (in Japanese) on either side of the acting area.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: Il Barbiere di Siviglia

Rossini's comic brilliance lights up the Met stage...again.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Figaro (on cart) makes his grand entrance in Act I of Il Barbiere di Siviglia.
Photo © 2016 The Metropolitan Opera.

The Met brings joy and warmth into the middle of winter with this January 2017 revival of Il Barbiere di Siviglia. This version of the opera is sung in Italian and presented without cuts.

The Year in Reviews 2016: Opera

The best productions and singing that kept vigil in a dark year.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Vigil in a wilderness of mirrors: Nina Stemme (center) in Tristan und Isolde.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2016 The Metropolitan Opera.

This was an interesting year for opera, marked by Rossini rarities, 18th century operas worthy of the occasional revival and a season-opening Tristan und Isolde that left audiences enraptured and traditionalists confused. Plus the Met did some wish fulfillment (for this writer anyway, finally staging Rossini's Guillaume Tell. Here are ten of the many fine opera performances reviewed on Superconductor in the year 2016.

Last Ash-in' Zero

"Opera lover" ruins two performances at the Met.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

Opera spoiler: Roger Kaiser (inset) ruined Saturday's Metropolitan Opera performances
of Rossini's Guillaume Tell and L'Italiana in Algeri.
Background photo by Ken Howard.

I was on a train last night coming back from a performance at NJPAC when I checked my Twitter, and learned that Saturday's matinée performance of Rossini's opera Guillaume Tell was ruined when a man dumped a "white powder" into the orchestra pit at the Metropolitan Opera. Here's a quick recap of the story, in case you haven't heard it by now. 

Opera Review: A State of Turban Decay

The Met revives L'Italiana in Algeri.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Veiled innuendo: Ildar Abdrazakov (left) mugs for Marianna Pizzolatto in the Met's
revival of L'Italiana in Algeri. Photo © 2016 

From Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail to John Adams' The Death of Klinghoffer, the Muslim world has long been fertile ground for opera composers. On Tuesday night, the Metropolitan Opera revived L'Italiana in Algeri, a Rossini comedy that treats the efforts of an Algerian bey (ruler) to recruit an Italian girl for his harem as the broadest possible farce. The opera marked James Levine's first performance in the Met pit in his new role of Music Director Emeritus, a role he embraced last season.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: L'Italiana in Algeri

Rossini's culture-clash comedy returns, conducted by James Levine.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Bass Ildar Abdrazakov is Mustafa in the Met revival of L'Italiana in Algeri.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2016 The Metropolitan Opera.

Although Il Barbiere di Siviglia is Rossini's best known comedy, L'Italiana in Algeri just might be his funniest. Ildar Abdrazakov is Mustafa, the Bey of Algiers opposite debut artists Marianna Pizzolato and René Barbera as the lovers Isabella and Lindoro. James Levine conducts the revival of this opera buffa rarity starring  in the title role. This is the first Met run of this opera since 2004.

Opera Review: Figaro's Bigger Brother

Caramoor exhumes Rossini's Aureliano in Palmira.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Will Crutchfield (left) conducting the chorus at Caramoor.
The maestro led the Orchestra of St. Luke's in Rossini's Aureliano in Palmira on Saturday.
Photo by Gabe Palacios © 2016 Caramoor Festival for the Performing Arts.

Giachino Rossini was one of the most prolific and pragmatic opera composers of the nineteenth century. A master of melodious arias and rousing choral crescendoes, he composed opera naturally and easily, tossing off a string of thirty-eight operas before retiring from the stage at that same age. Aureliano in Palmira was written for La Scala, and was an ambitious work in the opera seria mode. However, it tanked on opening night and sunk into the mists of opera history.

Opera Review: Nun of Your Business

LoftOpera dazzles Bushwick with an aerial Comte Ory.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Bed-shaped: Thorsteinn Arbornsson (left) Sharin Apostolou (center) and Elizabeth Pojanowski
negotiate in the final scene of Le Comte Ory.
Photo by Robert Altman © 2016 LoftOpera. 

It all started with a pair of flying nuns.

On Thursday night in Bushwick, LoftOpera offered the penultimate performance of  Le Comte Ory at the close of the 2015-16 spring season. This wild Rossini comedy that, almost two centuries after its 1828 debut has finally found its audience in the 21st century. The nuns in question were aerialists Nicki Miller and Chriselle Tidrick. The venue was The Muse, a circus training facility by day and cabaret by night, located hard by the railroad on a stretch of Moffat Street where the sidewalk (quite literally) ends.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: The Barber of Seville

The Met revives the Barber in "family-friendly" English.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

She's a vipera: Isabel Leonard returns as Rosina in The Barber of Seville.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2015 The Metropolitan Opera.

Rossini repackaged for the kids: with the most famous comedy in opera trimmed down to a lean 90 minutes. This is the Met's special holiday presentation of Gioachino Rossini's Barber of Seville with the radiant Isabel Leonard returning to the role of Rosina.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: La Donna del Lago

Joyce DiDonato reprises the title role in this Rossini rarity.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Scotland the Brave: Joyce DiDonato shines in La Donna del Lago.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2015 The Metropolitan Opera.

The Met continues its Rossini revival with one of the bona fide hits of last year: La Donna del Lago ("The Lady of the Lake"). Paul Curran's production bowed in 2013 at Santa Fe. At the Met, the magnificent natural vistas of New Mexico are replaced with scenery. (It was either that or knock out the back of the opera house and give the audience a backdrop of Amsterdam Avenue.)

Recordings Review: The Glove Slap

Tenor Bryan Hymel revives the French heroic tenor repertory.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Tenor Bryan Hymel.
Photo by Dario Acosta © 2015 Warner Classics.

With his new disc, Héroïque, New Orleans-born tenor Bryan Hymel has drawn off his dueling glove and slapped doubters in the face. Readers of this blog may remember Mr. Hymel from his heroic effort as a replacement Enée in Les Troyens at the Metropolitan Opera on Dec. 26, 2013. That performance in the six-hour five-act Berlioz epic put the spotlight squarely on this young tenor from the South. This first recital disc (released last month on Warner Classics) is more than a labor of love, it is a chance to hear a budding major artist doing what he does best: sing murderously difficult stuff with aplomb, panache and great beauty of tone.

Opera Review: Fezzes Are Cool

Juilliard Opera takes on Rossini's Il Turco in Italia.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Hyesang Park as Fiorilla in Il Turco in Italia.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2014 The Juilliard School.

The Juilliard Opera opened its 2014 season this week with a new production of Rossini's Il Turco in Italia, a genial comedy of manners that never caught fire with the opera-going public of the composer's day. Turco was viewed as an inferior sequel to the composer's wildly successful L'Italiana in Algeri and its libretto, chronicling the bed-hopping adventures of a licentious and married woman at a resort near Naples was considered immoral in Rossini's day. And it is a rarity: this was the first fully staged New York performance of the score since a New York City Opera production from 1978.

Concert Review: Rowing With the Current

Joyce DiDonato sails into Carnegie Hall.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

We can talk about Joyce: La DiDonato in a publicity still.
Image courtesy Warner Music Group.

When Joyce DiDonato last gave a recital in New York, she sang on the upper level of a metal shop located next to Brooklyn's heavily polluted Gowanus Canal. At Tuesday night's Carnegie Hall recital, the second performance of her 2014 Perspectives series, the diva was in a much more opulent setting. However, waterways--in this case the canals of Venice, Italy--continued to play an important role.

Concert Review: Bel Canto Over Brooklyn

Joyce DiDonato cleans up at the Gowanus Canal.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Joyce DiDonato.
Photo by Pari Dukovic for Warner Brothers Classics.

The Gowanus Canal, that perennially toxic waterway that side-winds through north-west Brooklyn is not usually associated with opera. On Friday night at the Gowanus Ballroom (a space created from the upper loft level of Serett Metalworks just off of 9th St.) mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato brought the music of 19th century Naples to this funky, out-of-the-way locale.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: Il Barbiere di Siviglia

Figaro's barber shop is back in business.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Tenor Lawrence Brownlee has an issue with the wig department.
Photo from Il Barbiere di Siviglia by Ken Howard © 2007 The Metropolitan Opera.

Although it was a complete and utter fiasco on its opening night in 1816, Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia remains the heavyweight champ among operatic comedies. The adventures of Figaro and company have held the stage in one form or another for 198 years, and remains the composer's most famous work.