The American composer Robert Ward lived a long, productive life, and by the time he died in 2013 at age 95, he had made at least one substantial contribution to the operatic repertoire. That work was his 1961 opera, The Crucible, based on the Arthur Miller play of the same name that allegorized the McCarthy “witch hunts” of the 1950s through the medium of the actual hunts … [Read more...]
Mezzo stands out in Ravel; cast charms in ‘Schicchi’ at Miami Music Festival
Isabel Signoret (center front) as The Child with the cast of L’Enfant et les Sortilèges. (Photo by Kristin Pulido) The operatic repertory is vast and rich, and some of its greatest gems can be found in shorter pieces. That’s not to say we hear them all that often in South Florida, so the Miami Music Festival’s mounting of two one-act masterpieces that almost never turn up … [Read more...]