Michael McDonaghSan Francisco,
The Austro-Hungarian empire may have died long ago but its musical products are still alive and kicking. Vide the San Francisco Symphony and its outgoing music director Michael Tilson Thomas pairing Mozart -- born Salzburg; Beethoven -- born Bonn; Richard ...
Michael McDonagh
What does one say about a concert dedicated to the dead, dying and those living with HIV/AIDS? What does one say about gifted composers, singers and writers dying all too soon from AIDS? What does one say about their deaths ...
Michael McDonaghNew York,
Good opera singers come and go but great ones are rare, and the Met remembered one of its best by dedicating all of its four performances of the "Verdi Requiem" to the late great and much loved Siberian bass Dmitri ...
Karen WeinsteinLos Angeles,
Verdi’s “Nabucco” could be conceptualized as the protest opera for all seasons. It premiered in 1842, when Giuseppe Verdi was 28 years old, and Italy was a loose confederation of city states dominated by foreign powers, especially Austria in the ...
Karen WeinsteinLos Angeles,
Why, you may ask yourself, have I not heard this opera before? Good question. George Bizet, the composer, is practically a household word, even though his only product you may be able bring to mind is “Carmen,” this season’s LA ...
David E. MorenoPalo Alto,
Taylor Mac just hit the San Francisco Bay Area like a category five hurricane; surprising seasoned thespians, consummate drag queens, strung out performance artists, elite Stanford students, and, baby boomer culture vultures. Who could resist the shear force of Mac’s ...
Karen WeinsteinLos Angeles,
The battle lines are drawn. On the one side there are the opera snobs who label “Carmen” as that “chestnut.” On the other, there are the thousands who fill halls when “Carmen” plays. The beautiful and melodic score, and the ...
Mary NguyenLondon,
It has been a quarter of a century since Ravi Shankar and Philip Glass collaborated together and composed "Passages" - a superb fusion of traditional Indian and Western music, separated into six parts. Today, it is Shankar's devoted daughter ...
Monteverdi's Vespers with Raphaël Pichon and Pygmalion
Mary NguyenLondon,
For Monday night, this was a special occasion on many accounts for the BBC Proms. It was the debut for award-winning French early music ensemble Pygmalion and their artistic director Raphaël Pichon. The 32-year-old violinist, countertenor and conductor had dreamed ...
