Yesterday I caught the last of three performances of Tomás Bretón’s La Verbena de la Paloma given by Toronto Operetta Theatre at the St.Lawrence Centre. It’s a zarzuela. What’s that you may ask. In short it’s the native Spanish form of operetta. Based on what I saw yesterday it has the following elements; a love story with a complication that resolves happily, spoken dialogue, musical numbers including traditional Spanish folk/dance pieces and elements of the commedia dell’arte. These latter included an older man lusting after a much younger girl )actually a pair of them), a jealous lover who is tested by his sweetheart and a bumbling policeman.
To be perfectly honest I haven’t been to a Met in HD broadcast in ages. Regular readers will perhaps have noticed that I’m usually insanely busy on weekends as it is! That said, I know that people appreciate a few thoughts on what;’s upcoming so I took a look at the 2023/24 season offering. It’s an intriguing season. The first three productions are more or less contemporary which must be some kind of record. They are:
Browsing the back catalogue for fun stuff a few days ago I came across a record of English song featuring Dame Felicity Lott and pianist Graham Johnson. It’s called Favourite English Songs and was released in 2006 so. at the height of the singer’s interpretative powers and with the voice still in excellent shape. It’s an interesting mix of the very familiar; Vaughan Williams’ :High Noon” and some of the Britten folk song arrangements for example, and the less familiar with songs by Maude White, Cecil Gibbs and Gerald Tyrwhitt-Wilson among the composers I’ve never heard of.
Have 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.
operaramblings 