Sardanapalo

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sardanapaloHave you ever asked yourself “What if Liszt had written an opera?”.  I hadn’t either.  But he did start one; Sardanapalo.  It’s based on a Byron poem and tells the story of Sardanapalus, king of Assyria, who met a rather grisly end with his favourite concubine Myra after his subjects revolted, objecting to his decadent lifestyle.  The libretto is by an unknown hand and it seems only Act 1 ever got written.  Liszt made a start on setting that, leaving just about enough material for Cambridge scholar David Trippett to produce a performable version.  This was duly performed and recorded in Weimar in 2018.

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Heretic Threads

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Heretic Threads (Cover)I’ve been listening to an intriguing new album.  It’s called Heretic Threads and it contains a most unusual treatment of three keyboard works by Haydn.  The three works are:

  • Sonata in F Major for fortepiano Hob XVI 23
  • Sonata in E Minor for fortepiano Hob XVI 34
  • Fantasia in C Major Hob XVI 4

The treatment is that each is first played on fortepiano by Boyd McDonald.  Then there’s a version for accordion by Joseph Petric.  Finally composer and recording engineer Peter Lutek has created an electronic piece by sampling and processing excerpts from the fortepiano and accordion versions.

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May 2023

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wordcloudmay23Things happening next month…

But first this month… on April 27th to 29th male soprano Samuel Mariño is appearing with
Tafelmusik in a programme titled Higher Love: Virtuoso Arias.  Details here.

Crow’s Theatre has a couple of shows.  True Crime opens on the 2nd.  It’s a short run.  Preview on the 1st then closes on the 7th.  It’s basically a one man, semi-improvised show about an imprisoned con man.  The Chinese Lady, which runs 5th to 21st (previews 2nd to 4th) in the smaller Studio Theatre tells the story of the first Chinese woman in the USA.  Written by Lloyd Suh and directed by Marjorie Chan it should be interesting.  There’s also Boom X.  Rick Miller plays over a hundred characters to narrate events from 1969 t0 1995.  It runs from the 10th to the 28th.  More details at crowstheatre.com.

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La Vie Parisienne Complete

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La Vie Parisienne isn’t my favourite work by Offenbach by a long shot.  The plot is absurd and the music, while not without wit (for example Bobinet;’s entrance in Act 5 is signalled by the Commendatore’s theme from Don Giovanni) and invention, mostly sounds like stuff one has heard before.  I was intrigued though by a recent production in Paris that used an attempt to reconstruct the score as Offenbach and his librettists Meilhac and Halévy might have wished it in1866.  As it happened a combination of censorship and the inability/reluctance of the cast (singing actors rather than opera singers) to tackle the more challenging music led to cuts throughout the rehearsal process and the virtual evisceration of acts 4 and 5.  Now scholars at that most interesting organisation the Palazetto Bru Zane have gone back to the autograph materials used in that first run to try and reconstruct a “complete” version.

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From Strauss to the Orient

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Last night’s concert at Trinity Saint Paul’s by the Amici Ensemble and friends. was titled From Strauss to the Orient.  Unsurprisingly, the first half of the concert was Strauss.  The first piece was the Duett Concertino for clarinet, bassoon, strings and harp; arranged by Serouj Kradjian with piano replacing harp.  Besides the Amicis (Serouj – piano, Joaquin Valdepeñas – clarinet and David Hetherington – cello) were guests Kathleen Kajioka and Timothy Ying – violins, Barry Shiffman – viola, David Lalonde – bass and Michael Sweeney – bassoon.  It’s an interesting piece.  The clarinet and bassoon basically carry on a conversation across three movements with the strings and piano as a sort of “backing band”.  The overlapping ranges but very different colours of the two woodwind instruments are both pleasing and intriguing.  It was nicely done.  It’s always a delight to watch a chamber ensemble that is obviously communicating and having fun!

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Eine Winterreise

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Eine Winterreise is a show conceived and created by Christof Loy and presented and recorded at Theater Basel in 2022.  What it’s not is Schubert’s Winterreise. with or without staging.  Loy describes it as a “kaleidoscopic” look at Schubert’s life through his music.  So the show is a compendium of Schubert’s vocal and instrumental music with a bit of spoken text.  It runs about 100 minutes but only 24 or so are music from Winterreise, of which only six of the twenty-four songs are included.

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New theatre season announcements

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Crows-NestNew announcements about 2023/24 seasons have been coming in.  Perhaps the most interesting (unsurprisingly) comes from Crow’s Theatre which has become a “go to” destination in the last few years.  Highlights include:

  • A remount of Williams and Chatterton’s Rocking Horse Winner in collaboration with Tapestry Opera.  That’s in November 2023.
  • There’s also a very interesting sounding musical; Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 presented in partnership with The Musical Stage Company.  December 2023 to January 2024.
  • Continuing the collaboration with The Howland Company there is Will Arbery’s Heroes of the Fourth Turning directed by Philip Akin (who directed Of the Sea).  This deals with the aftermath of the Charlottesvile Riots.  October 2023.

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Songs in Time of War in the RBA

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I have a written a couple of times in the last year about Alex Roth’s Songs in Time of War which sets poems by Du Fu in translations by Vikram Seth.  The cycle was performed. again on Wednesday in the RBA by Lawrence Wiliford and friends just as they did last August in the Music Garden.  My review of that performance gives information about the songs and the ensemble that it seems pointless to repeat.

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Marion Newman and friends

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mnThursday’s concert in the Music in the Afternoon series at Walter Hall was curated by Marion Newman and featured herself, soprano Melody Courage, baritone Evan Korbut and pianist Gordon Gerrard.  It featured some classic opera duets and trios ranging from the Flower Duet from Madama Butterfly to an exuberant “Dunque io son” from the Barber of Seville along with Berlioz’ “Vous soupirer” from Beatrice et Bénédict (which sounded like title should translate as “you will be immersed in warm soup”).  These numbers were all very well done and there were a couple of solo pieces too with Melody singing the Poulenc La Fraicheur et le Feu with great verve and Evan chipping in with an exuberant “Sit down, you’re rocking the boat” from Guys and Doills.

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