Time was when the English comic operettas of William Schwenk Gilbert (words) and Arthur Sullivan (music) were a regular feature of amateur theatrical activity around this country. It had been that way since the late 1870s, when a national craze in the U.S. for one of their shows, H.M.S. Pinafore, monopolized the popular culture, with theater troupes presenting pirated … [Read more...]
Concertos by Mozart, Diamond make Symphonia concert special
Every musical season in South Florida brings with it a plenitude of concerti featuring the violin, the piano, and the cello, with an occasional clarinet or flute doing the honors. But it’s rare to hear a concerto for the horn, and so it was especially welcome Sunday to hear the next-to-last concert of the season by the Symphonia Boca Raton, which featured the well-known … [Read more...]
FGO’s ‘Before Night Falls’ an important work, strongly cast
The life of Cuba after the Revolution of 1959 has been the subject of endless amounts of prose and heated arguments, but it also makes a good subject for an opera. In May 2010, the Cuban-American composer Jorge Martín saw his opera on this subject, Before Night Falls, take the stage for the first time at the Fort Worth Opera in Texas. On Saturday night, he was on hand again … [Read more...]
‘Rigoletto’ at PB Opera, first cast: Chioldi stuns as jester in effective production
A magnificent central role performance and some marvelous supporting voices made Palm Beach Opera’s production of Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto one to admire and remember. Returning to this 1851 mega-hit after an absence of nine years, the troupe’s A-cast mounting was led by baritone Michael Chioldi, who should be close to considering Palm Beach Opera his home company. His … [Read more...]
Violinist Benedetti taking career (and Marsalis concerto) to new level
Last week, as she prepared for her Florida tour with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Nicola Benedetti was having a little trouble getting used to her instrument again, particularly the bow. “It’s like a cello bow right now. Or a double bass,” she said, speaking by phone from her home base in London. That’s because she had just gotten off the road after a 13-concert … [Read more...]
Late review: Despite flaws, Berlioz ‘Roméo’ marks a Lynn milestone
Guillermo Figueroa has been an advocate of the music of Hector Berlioz for decades, and in his time as the conductor of the Lynn Philharmonia, he’s pursued that advocacy with presentations of major works by the composer. A season ago, it was the song cycle Les Nuits d’Éte, and on Feb. 25, it was his hard-to-classify “dramatic symphony,” Roméo et Juliette. Joined by three … [Read more...]
Late review: Albright, at the Four Arts: Plenty of fingers, not enough heart
Charlie Albright is one of those tremendously gifted people who has conquered the world of music and academics with equal aplomb, holding a bachelor’s in pre-med and economics (Harvard) and a master’s in music (New England Conservatory). Now in his early 20s, the Centralia, Wash., native has already had a long and impressive career, playing with major orchestras and … [Read more...]
Semi-staged ‘Bohème’ comes off well at Boca Fest
Giacomo Puccini’s La Bohème is one of the most popular operas in the world for a number of reasons, perhaps most importantly its abundance of mellifluous and beautiful Italian late-Romantic melody. But Puccini also was a man of the theater, and he knew how to craft a compelling theatrical package (after all, La Bohème has been staged regularly and frequently since February … [Read more...]
Symphonia’s French program a little over the top
It’s no secret that music education in the public schools is not what it was decades ago, when there was a middlebrow consensus that it was a good thing for an educated person to know the rudiments of music and major figures of the Western classical tradition. In our time, there are few concerts anymore that are not also educational, in which presenters and performers make … [Read more...]
Berlioz’s epic take on ‘Romeo’ set for weekend at Lynn
Sitting at a table in a new Boca Raton diner, Guillermo Figueroa opens his cloth-bound, dark blue Bärenreiter edition of the music and points to a page, marked with various colored pencils. The score he’s pointing to, explaining the perils of this or that passage, is the playbook for this weekend, when the violinist and conductor will lead the Lynn Philharmonia, the Master … [Read more...]