This highly satisfying Tannhäuser , directed by Nikolaus Lehnhoff, was covered in its DVD release in Fanfare 32: 6. Readers are referred to that review (the...
Recently I’ve come across a few references on the Web to the late, great stage director, Walter Felsenstein as a pioneer of Regietheater. Talk about irony:...
This live concert account of the Bruckner Seventh uses the Nowak edition, with full percussion in the Adagio’s climax. Despite a slightly slower tempo, it otherwise...
It’s hard to say almost anything about Anita O’Day that hasn’t already been said, several times over. Among white female jazz singers, she was the Quantum...
Karl V is Holy Roman Emperor (1519-1558) Charles V. Karl V is a blockbuster of an opera: historical drama, personal tragedy, religious tract, political harangue, and...
La gazzetta was a failure at its premiere. That’s no surprise, really, given the elaborately air-headed plot (more or less summarized in Bob Rose’s review of...
To celebrate the 300th anniversary of the founding of St. Petersburg, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic pulled out some of the stops. On the up side, they...
This generally acclaimed Royal Ballet production of Swan Lake follows on the heels of the somewhat disappointing Blu-ray Mariinsky performance starring Ulyana Lopatkina (Odette/Odile) and conducted...
The Firebird and Le sacre du printemps have been staples of the orchestral repertoire for so long that it is difficult to imagine how revolutionary they...
I tend to associate Martha Argerich with the Lugano music festival, the annual gala with which she is closely affiliated. The present Medici Arts DVD, however,...
The CD version of this production was reviewed by Raymond Tuttle in Fanfare 31:3. Several singers were switched out for the DVD: the CD’s Leporello, Lorenzo...
Given Domingo’s assumption of the title role in Cyrano at the Metropolitan in recent years, I was strongly looking forward to this release. Sadly, it doesn’t...
