Another ‘Movember’ has come and nearly gone with thousands of men nursing luxuriant and not- so- luxuriant hirsute additions to their profiles. Had they been alive, no doubt some composers would have scored handsomely in the Movember stakes —
Discovered in 2004, amongst a collection of drafts and rejected sketches, the prologue to Shostakovich’s incomplete and forgotten opera Orango received its world premiere in Los Angeles in December 2012. The work was intended to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the Soviet revolution but became a satire on the bourgeois Russian press. The world premiere was directed…
Donizetti’s bel canto masterpiece Lucia di Lammermoor opens in Sydney this week. The Opera Australia production has Emma Matthews in the title role with American tenor James Valenti as Edgardo and Giorgio Caoduro as Enrico. These images give an idea of the power and drama of the opera and below them, the link to a feature about the…
‘Art for art’s sake’ is becoming an increasingly remote concept in 21st century Australia as performing arts bodies are expected to function according to business models and boost their bottom line from private sources. Are these expectations realistic – and who evaluates the bodies that make the funding decisions? The Australia Council for the Arts which…
Aided and abetted by pianist Erin Helyard, David Greco is by far Australia’s best current lieder baritone.
Seven of Britain’s opera houses including the Royal Opera House, the Welsh National Opera and the English National Opera, get together for a behind the scenes look at opera this Saturday May 10th. The four-hour event Inside Opera will be live streamed on YouTube. Read more. Inside Opera: Live will be livestreamed at theguardian.com/classical and…
What is the secret of the enduring appeal of the music of JS Bach?! Even of you don’t like his music, the complexity of his writing, his output and his role as an innovator are unparalleled. Pianist James Rhodes claims that Bach takes us into a “fourth dimension of existence.” Read more from BBC Culture.