Nuits blanches is the title of a new CD from Karina Gauvin and the Pacific Baroque Orchestra. It’s largely a subset of the material they performed at Koerner Hall in November and I don’t see much point in repeating my thoughts which are indeed confirmed by the CD. There’s less music on the CD (about 55 minutes) so no Berezovsky sonata or Paisiello divertimento. It’s a collection of mostly arias with the odd instrumental piece by Bortniansky, Dall’Oglio, Berezovsky, Fomine and Gluck.
The performances are as good as at Koerner and the disk, which was recorded at the Église Saint-Augustin in Mirabel in October 2019 is nicely balanced and clear. There is very complete documentation in the accompanying booklet, albeit in cruelly small print.
Isabel Bayrakdarian’s latest CD is rather odd. The material is obscure. It’s all taken from 18th century operas about the Armenian king Tigranes and his daughter Cleopatra. The plots are basically the same. Tigranes wants Cleopatra to make a marriage of state but she is in love with Tigranes’ enemy Mithridates. The outcomes are predictable. Apparently, these operas are Bayrakdarian’s academic specialty and she has chosen excerpts from Cleopatra’s part in versions by Hasse, Vivaldi and Gluck.
Mezzo-soprano Beste Kalender and pianist Rachel Andrist are performing on line on Tuesday evening (March 24th) at 8.30pm (Toronto time). The recital is titled A Spring Recital: From Venice to Constantinople and will feature music by 
Carlisle Floyd’s Prince of Players was originally written for the Opera Studio in Houston as a chamber work. It was subsequently reworked as a full scale piece and taken up by Milwaukee’s Florentine Opera where it was performed and recorded in 2018. It’s a two act piece with a libretto by the composer that deals with the transition from men playing women on stage to the roles being taken by women for the first time in the reign of Charles II. It’s framed by the final scene of Shakespeare’s Othello. First time around Desdemona is played by noted actor Ned Kynaston to rapturous applause and praise from the king. The rest of the first act is the story of how Charles; influenced by his mistress and aspiring actor Nell Gwynn and the much more talented Meg Hughes who, to complicate matters, is Kynaston’s dresser and secretly in love with him, decides that times must change and women must play women on the stage. The act culminates in a confrontation between the king and Kynaston where the latter accuses the former of destroying his art and livelihood and the theatre with it. The king is unrelenting. This act is tight and well crafted with quite a lot of humour as well as some pathos.
The following just in from Tapestry concerning Saturday night’s livestream of Songbook X.
operaramblings 