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Browsing: Choral

Photo: Marco Borggreve

Julian Prégardien – Tenor and Teacher Takes On Another Role

By Arthur Kaptainis on 30 October 2018 Art Song, Baroque and Early, Choral, Opera, Vocal

Like father, like son. Both Christoph Prégardien, the father, and Julian Prégardien, his son, are noted for baroque and classical opera and oratorio as well as 19th-century Lieder. Both have made highly-regarded recordings of Bach. Julian, however, is taking a step farther than his father – and most singers this side of Barbara Hannigan – by conducting the St. John Passion while singing the role of the Evangelist on Nov. 22 for the Montreal Bach Festival at the Church of St. Andrew and St. Paul. (There will be a repeat performance on Nov. 25 at the Saint-Benoît-du-Lac Abbey in the…

The audience playing the part of “The Water” at Festival O18’s Queens of the Night: Dito and Aeneas at the Theatre of Living Arts; photo by Steven Pisano

Opera Philadelphia’s Festival O18: The Whirlwind That Was

By Charles Geyer on 29 October 2018 Baroque and Early, Choral, Classical, Concert Reviews, La Scena Online, La Scena Spotlight, Multimedia, Musical Theatre, Opera, Orchestral, Theatre, Visual Arts

REVIEW: of Opera Philadelphia’s “Festival O18” (September 20-30, 2018) – a new production of Lucia di Lammermoor, composed by Gaetano Donizetti with libretto by Salvadore Cammarano; the world premiere of Sky on Swings, composed by Lembit Beecher with libretto by Hannah Moscovitch; the premiere of Ne quittez pas (a “reimagined” La voix humaine of Francis Poulenc, with a new prologue featuring numerous of the composer’s art songs); the premiere of Glass Handel, an immersive concert experience featuring countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo performing music by George Frideric Handel and Philip Glass; and Queens of the Night: Blythely After Hours, an opera/rock…

New Jewish Music. Analekta Works by Current, Marhulets, Foss

By Benjamin Goron on 5 October 2018 CD and Book Reviews, Choral, Contemporary, Folk, Orchestral, Vocal

Three composers are involved in this first co-production between Analekta and the Azrieli Music Prizes: Brian Current and Wlad Marhulets, winners of the 2016 Azrieli Commissioning Competition and Azrieli Prize in Jewish Music, respectively, and the American Lukas Foss. The Czech National Symphony Orchestra is conducted by Steven Mercurio, the choir by Miriam Nmcová. Soloists are soprano Sharon Azrieli, clarinetist David Krakauer and tenor Richard Troxell. In The Seven Heavenly Halls, Current offers his musical vision of the Zohar, the fundamental text of the Kabbalah. Tension in the orchestra, a tumult of voices, mystical flights of fancy and dense textures…

Majestueux Mozart: Orchestre du Nouveau Monde takes on the Requiem

By Marie-Claire Fafard-Blais on 4 October 2018 Choral

True to tradition and confident of success, the Orchestre philharmonique du Nouveau Monde will perform Mozart’s Requiem twice on Nov. 10 under the baton of its own Michel Brousseau. Presented by Mundia Productions, the concerts in Notre Dame Basilica bring together five musical organizations: the Orchestre philharmonique du Nouveau Monde, its choir, the Chanteurs de Sainte-Thérèse, le Chœur Tremblant and the Ottawa Classical Choir. Brousseau has a passion for the Requiem, having conducted it many times. Mozart died while working on it, aged 35. As Brousseau explains, “It’s an unfinished work and we still don’t know for sure what was…

Chansons d’amour d’Acadie et de France – Atma Classique, 2018

By Benjamin Goron on 2 October 2018 Baroque and Early, CD and Book Reviews, Chamber Music, Choral

Chansons d’amour d’Acadie et de France – Chœur Louisbourg, dir. Monique Richard ; Skye Consort This album offers a happy musical reflection of publications of recent decades. The Acadian folk songs are from compilations published in 1988 and 1996. Musical style range from the languor of Écrivez-moi to the light touch of Moine Simon. The Louisbourg Choir, directed by Monique Richard, lends rich tone and consistency to these songs, whose harmonies have been carefully chosen to give them a traditional sound, complemented by the instruments of the Skye Consort: recorder, chalumeau, rauschpfeife, cittern, violin, nyckelharpa and cello. Jacotin Le Bel’s songs complement a…

Faith and Folly — Taking Up Serpents, a New American Opera, Bows in Boston

By Charles Geyer on 26 September 2018 Art Song, Choral, Concert Reviews, Contemporary, Indigenous, Interviews, La Scena Online, La Scena Spotlight, Musical Theatre, Opera, Theatre, Uncategorized, Vocal

PREVIEW: of a public workshop performance with orchestra of the new opera Taking Up Serpents – libretto by Jerre Dye, score by Kamala Sankaram; presented by MassOpera, Boston; Sunday, September 30, 2018 at 3 p.m.; Deane Hall at the Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts (527 Tremont Street, Boston); the opera is a commission of the Washington National Opera and this workshop is presented by MassOpera. In the final passages of St. Mark’s Gospel, Christ declares that a hallmark among his true believers shall be a willingness that “they shall take up serpents!” And in certain quarters…

Michael Hewitt as Lieutenant Horstmayer and Arnold Livingston Geis as Nikolaus Sprink in The Glimmerglass Festival's 2018 production of Kevin Puts and Mark Campbell's "Silent Night." Photo: Karli Cadel/The Glimmerglass Festival

Through the Glimmerglass, 2018 – Reflections of a Turbulent Century

By Charles Geyer on 24 August 2018 Art Song, Choral, Classical, Classical Music, Concert Reviews, Contemporary, Dance, Education, Folk, La Scena Online, La Scena Spotlight, Musical Theatre, Opera, Orchestral, Romantic

PROFILE/REVIEW: of the 2018 Glimmerglass Festival Season: Silent Night by Kevin Puts and Mark Campbell; West Side Story by Leonard Bernstein, Arthur Laurents and Stephen Sondheim; Cunning Little Vixen by Leoš Janáček; and The Barber of Seville by Gioachino Rossini and Cesare Sterbini. “It’s remarkable how many important things happened in 1918,” observes Glimmerglass Festival artistic and managing director Francesca Zambello, speaking at a recent pre-show audience address in Cooperstown. “The end of World War I. The birth of Leonard Bernstein. And the premiere of this piece” – this last a reference to Igor Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale, which was…

Mozart & Salieri Are at It Again, at dell’Arte Opera Ensemble’s Festival 2018

By Charles Geyer on 9 August 2018 Art Song, Choral, Classical, Classical Music, Interviews, La Scena Online, La Scena Spotlight, Musical Theatre, Opera, Orchestral, Strings, Theatre, Vocal

PREVIEW: of the 2018 dell’Arte Opera Ensemble Summer Festival Season, “Mozart & Salieri,” at New York City’s LaMaMa (66 East 4th Street), August 11 through 26; and INTERVIEWS: with company founder and artistic director, maestro Chris Fecteau, and dell’Arte 2018 creative team members Brittany Goodwin and Catherine O’Shaughnessy. This company is ready to rumble. Call it the Thrilla from Vienna: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri, that most bruited matchup of 18th Century musical titans, is slated for a redux this month – this time in 21st Century New York, courtesy of the dell’Arte Opera Ensemble. Grab a ringside seat.…

Georg Friedrich Händel: Johannes-Passion (CPO)

By Norman Lebrecht on 6 July 2018 Baroque and Early, Choral, Lebrecht Weekly

Did you know Handel wrote a St John’s Passion? Me, neither, and I’m still not convinced. This score was discovered in the Berlin Royal Library in the mid-19th century by the authoritative Friedrich Chrysander and included in the even more authoritative Halle Handel Edition. But there have always been doubts about dates and style. The credited librettist, Christian Heinrich Postel, died of consumption in Hamburg in 1705, when Handel was 20. Handel knew Postel’s work and may have asked for a text, but Postel worked mostly for Telemann and if he found time at all for Handel it would have…

La Muse: Viva Verdi with Romanian accents

By Marie-Claire Fafard-Blais on 6 April 2018 Canadian Music, Choral, Classical Music, Quebec Music, Vocal

La Muse choir under the direction of Ioana German, will present its Viva Verdi concert in both Montreal and Ottawa. Supported by sopranos Chantal Dionne, Marina Negruta and Anca Maria Grigoriu; mezzo-soprano Antonela Barnat; tenor Jaime Sandoval; bass Dan Popescu and an orchestra, the choir will perform some of Verdi’s greatest choruses, including excerpts from the Requiem, Il Trovatore, La Traviata and Nabucco. This large-scale concert promises a burst of Verdian joy. Barnat has been a regular singer at the Bucharest State Opera since her debut as Rosina in Rossini’s The Barber of Seville in 2006. She made her debut…

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