Heitor Villa Lobos

A Singer’s Notes 154: Johann Pachelbel, Johann Sebastian Bach, Antonio Vivaldi, and Heitor Villa Lobos

Keith Kibler Leave a comment

The Aston Magna concert of July 27 in Saint James Place in Great Barrington featuring music of Johann Pachelbel, Johann Sebastian Bach, Antonio Vivaldi, and Heitor Villa Lobos was a feast of beauty. The variety of works by these composers gave the ensemble and featured soloists opportunities to display their virtuosity and their admirable expressiveness. Aldo Abreu delighted the audience with brilliant skill in Vivaldi’s Concert for Sopranino Recorder in A minor. He and Christopher Krueger, also on recorder, were then featured in a performance of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 in G Major, along with violinist Edson Scheid who commanded his solo part with tremendous skill and playfulness.

The Taming of the Shrew at the Mount.. Photo Zachary da Silva.

A Singer’s Notes 153—Shakespeare and Company: Two Outdoor Performances: The Taming of the Shrew and The Merry Wives of Windsor

Keith Kibler Leave a comment

In Williams Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, the Bard baits us at every moment. We all long for a sweet love-life. Finding this requires, in this play, a whole lot of passionate listening, and in Shakespeare and Company’s outdoor production in the Dell at the Mount, director Kelly Galvin gave it to us.

Isabel Leonard joins the National Youth Orchestra of the USA for Berlioz's Nuits d'ete. Photo Hilary Scott.

A Singer’s Notes 152: National Youth Orchestra of the United States at Tanglewood, Sir Antonio Pappano conduction, with Isabel Leonard, Mezzo-Soprano

Keith Kibler Leave a comment

Conductor Antonio Pappano led the young players of the National Youth Orchestra of the United States in a spectacular performance of Richard Strauss’s Alpine Symphony on August 1st in Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood. The Alpine Symphony is well-known to be one of the most difficult orchestral pieces in the symphonic repertoire. To watch the intensity of these instrumentalists was almost as wonderful as hearing them. The hall vibrated with exuberance as well as tenderness. Conductor Antonio Pappano has every right to be proud of this superb young group of players.

Christine Goerke as Brünnhilde and James Rutherford as Wotan with Andris Nelsons and the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra in 'Die Walküre' July 28 at Tanglewood. Photo Hilary Scott.

Wagner’s Die Walküre and Verdi’s Requiem under Andris Nelsons at Tanglewood

Michael Miller Leave a comment

Opera has been a significant presence at Tanglewood since the 1940s, whether in concert performances at the Koussevitzky Music Shed or fully-staged in the Theater—among the first structures to be built at Tanglewood, but disused since the Levine years—and I’ll confess a certain fondness for it, in spite of its spartan grimness, uncomfortable seats, and less-than-ideal acoustics. There, TMC Vocal Fellows and the TMC Orchestra could flex their muscles with sets and costumes, often producing superb results, above all in Mozart. The high points of opera at Tanglewood include performances of rarities under Leinsdorf and Ozawa, and I should mention Dutoit’s superb performance of Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust in the Shed, as well as Szymanowski’s great Król Roger in Symphony Hall. Verdi’s Don Carlo and Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, both with the TMC Orchestra were also outstanding events at Tanglewood.

Gustav Mahler in 1892.

A Singer’s Notes 151: Giancarlo Guerrero leads the TMC Orchestra in Mahler’s Fourth Symphony

Keith Kibler Leave a comment

Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 at Tanglewood is what I have been waiting for throughout the summer. A while ago I had the privilege of hearing this magnificent work in the Musikvereinsaal in Vienna. Though it may seem childish to say so, the slow movement of the great piece is almost frightening. So powerful it is when the first chord sounds in the third movement, it is as if a spirit has entered your body, is opening your ears, is finding and knowing more about being human than comes from any other work of art. This great movement produces a catholic music so sublime, it engulfs all my passions.

Dima Slobodeniouk leads the BSO in Sibelius' Symphony No. 1. Photo Hilary Scott.

Sibelius Pivots to the Symphony

Larry Wallach Leave a comment

A graph showing the reputation of Sibelius’s symphonies in the 20th century would look like a fever chart. When he wrote his first symphony at the very end of the 19th century, the composer was still struggling for recognition, and it took another decade for his work to receive international attention. Once that happened, his reputation rose to that of a composer whose music held the greatest interest for orchestras and audiences during a period when the early modernists were generating more polarized responses.

Before TUNDI's performance of Tristan und Isolde at the Latchis Theatre.

An Immersive Tristan und Isolde, Performed to the Highest Standards at the Latchis Theatre, Brattleboro, Vermont, by TUNDI. Last performance Sunday, August 25, at 10 am.

Michael Miller 3 Comments

This is, I think, the third alert of this sort I have sent out in my thirteen years of arts journalism. I have just come from one of the most extraordinary evenings I have experienced in many years of opera, and there is only one more chance to attend it, Sunday morning, August 26th, at 10 am at the Latchis Theater, 48 Main Street in Brattleboro, Vermont. Even if you have something important scheduled, change it and be there!

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