Although the wave of national tours that sweep South Florida during the regular season are over by April, there are several classical festivals that are regular features of the hot months afterward, when we’re all in need of some relief. Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival (July 5-28; West Palm Beach, North Palm Beach, Delray Beach) In the long-distant year of 1992, when … [Read more...]
Even with faults, Miami Music Fest’s double dose of Wagner enchants
By Dennis D. Rooney For its public concert July 14, the Miami Music Festival’s Wagner Institute presented the second acts of two of Richard Wagner’s operas: Lohengrin (1850) and Die Walküre (1870), providing a generous portion of contrasting music. The singers, chorus and orchestra, all drawn from the participants in this year’s institute, were conducted by its artistic … [Read more...]
Miami Music Festival’s ‘Walküre’ sees directorial debut by composer’s descendant
Sitting alone deep in the ancient cedar forests on the Japanese island of Yukushima, Antoine Wagner came in direct contact with his quest for silence. “You spend three days living in a dense forest in tents, and then suddenly the guide says, ‘You have to stay here for an hour, someone will come get you,’” he said. “There’s not a single sound in the forest, and you feel like … [Read more...]
Summer season preview: Three classical festivals
Classical events during the high season are distinguished by big stars and ensembles coming through South Florida in times of chilly weather up north. And while the summer months have always had things going on if you knew where to look, these days there are bigger and more elaborate events that bring out the permanent residents. Here’s an overview: Palm Beach Chamber … [Read more...]
‘Dead Man Walking’ ends Miami festival in overwrought fashion
By Dennis D. Rooney The composer Jake Heggie was born John Stephen Heggie on March 31, 1961, in West Palm Beach, but didn’t stay there long as his family relocated soon after his birth to Columbus, Ohio. Since the late 1990s he has been identified with the musical scene in San Francisco, where he currently resides. He composed Dead Man Walking through a fellowship from … [Read more...]
Brilliant ‘Walküre’ stands out at MMF’s second Wagner night
Somewhere along the line, as he put together what he wanted to offer in his summer music festival in Miami, Michael Rossi hit upon a very smart idea. That was to set up a special training environment for singers to be coached for the operas of Richard Wagner, which for their length and epic natures, require voices with stamina and color in a way unlike the music of any other … [Read more...]
A charming, colorful ‘Vixen’ at Miami Music Festival
By Dennis D. Rooney Leoš Janáček’s operas, particularly Jenůfa and Káťa Kabanová, have now become established repertory works, albeit still at the fringes. The Cunning Little Vixen, from 1924, is one of his most accessible. The composer based the libretto on a story first told in comic strip form in Lidové noviny, his hometown newspaper in Brno, the Moravian capital. … [Read more...]
Miami Music Festival’s fourth season includes Heggie opera, orchestral bash for Fourth
Starting tonight, the Miami Music Festival begins presenting productions from its Opera Institute, opening with Jacques Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann. The opera repeats Saturday and alternates Friday night and Sunday afternoon with Leos Janacek’s The Cunning Little Vixen. Both operas will be presented at the festival’s home base at Barry University in Miami Shores, but … [Read more...]
Women outclass the men in Miami Music Festival’s ‘Crucible’
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...]
Soloists, new work provide mega-meal at Miami Music Festival
MIAMI BEACH — You can’t say Michael Rossi doesn’t give you enough to listen to. Saturday night at the New World Center, the head of the Miami Music Festival presented an orchestral concert dedicated to the eminent Polish-born violinist Ida Haendel that featured parts and wholes of five concertos, a massive tone poem and a world premiere. In addition, there was a presentation … [Read more...]