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Browsing: Classical

Les débuts modestes du Festival Opéra de Québec

By La Scena Musicale Team on 21 July 2011 Classical, Concert Reviews, Contemporary, Opera

Par Julie Berardino Le très attendu Festival Opéra de Québec se déroulera cet été (du 25 juillet au 6 août) à Québec avec une version modeste du Rossignol et autres fables de Stravinsky et de la Flûte enchantée de Mozart. Tel que prévu, Robert Lepage, originaire de Québec, sera à l’honneur dans la production qu’offre sa compagnie Ex Machina de l’opéra de Stravinsky, qui fut créée par le Canadian Opera Company et a récemment complété une tournée à New York. La production amène chanteurs et marionnettiste à évoluer dans un grand bassin d’eau sur scène (salle Louis-Fréchette du Grand Théâtre de Québec)…

Big, Bold & Beautiful: Dallas Symphony and Chorus in Beethoven 9th!

By Paul E. Robinson on 30 May 2011 Classical, Orchestral

by Paul E. RobinsonThe Beethoven Ninth Symphony is one of the most overplayed pieces in orchestral literature, but it sells tickets by the bushel and managers seldom go wrong, even when programming it season after season. To call it “overplayed” is not to say that it isn’t a great work or that it doesn’t bring out the best in conductors and orchestras; indeed it is and indeed it does. These facts took me back to Dallas recently to hear Jaap van Zweden and the Dallas Symphony (DSO) engage with the Ninth in the Meyerson Symphony Center.Van Zweden recorded all the…

Nagano’s New Recording of Beethoven’s Third a Triumph

By Paul E. Robinson on 24 March 2011 Classical, Concert Reviews, Orchestral

Beethoven: Gods, Heroes, and MenThe Creatures of Prometheus/Symphony No. 3 “Eroica”Orchestre symphonique de Montréal/Kent NaganoAnalekta AN2 9838 (73 min 51 s)****It is a sign of the times that the MSO has no major label willing to produce its CDs. Many fine orchestras are in the same situation and several of them – San Francisco Symphony, London Symphony, London Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Toronto Symphony, etc. – have taken to producing their own recordings. Fortunately, the Canadian record company Analekta, with the help of the Department of Canadian Heritage, has been putting together several MSO projects. The latest venture, like the first…

Claudio Abbado’s Grand Tour with his Mozart Orchestra

By La Scena Musicale Team on 8 April 2010 Classical, Concert Reviews, Orchestral

by Giuseppe PennisiMusic is the best medicine to cure cancer according to Maestro Claudio Abbado. Doctors removed much of his stomach and he can only eat small amounts at a time.“I found a new life, without a stomach,” he states. “I think differently. My senses are different.” His music-making has also changed: “I hear more lines now; I hear sounds I never heard before.”Unfortunately, the therapy has weakened him: it’s now a special occasion when Maestro Abbado conducts. At 77, Abbado has mostly turned away from the kind of grand institutions he once led — La Scala, the Vienna State…