Apologies

Reading through these weblog’s archives, I have realized I owe apologies to those who have been reading it since 2002. I was astonished to see that this used to be far more interesting reading back then. I am sorry to see how less enthusiastic I have become over the years… It was curious to realize [...]

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Humble strains but faintly show

Magdalena Kozená has earned a good reputation in Handel with her Cleopatra in Marc Minkowski’s recording of Giulio Cesare in Egitto. There she almost made us think of Lucia Popp in her warm, charming and touching performance. Inteligent and stylish as her performance is, the reedy purity of her light and high mezzo soprano played [...]

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Teresa Berganza

I would write something more complicate, but laziness prevents it. While listening to Varviso’s recording of Barbiere di Siviglia, I felt like posting something about the absolute Rossini mezzo soprano, which is Teresa Berganza. Call me obnoxious, but my opinion is that between Berganza and Joyce DiDonato there is nothing really worth the detour.

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I wouldn’t have believed if I had not seen and heard myself

Shirley Verrett is obviously a very great singer. I remember the first time I heard her back in the 80’s in a tape of Vivaldi’s Stabat Mater which haunts me still today. But I never thought I would hear of something like a recital in which a singer sings both Mozart’s Exsultate, jubilate*and Wagner’s Liebestod! [...]

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An Elektra from São Paulo

John Neschling, artistic director of the OSESP, explains he chose to present Elektra in concert version because the combination of Hofmannsthal’s text and Richard Strauss’s music is powerful enough to produce a theatrical experience even out of the context of a staging. On reading these words, one could expect the sort of bombastic performance that [...]

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Pavarotti

It is a pity that most obituaries focus the fact that Pavarotti should be remembered by his earlier career and that we should kindly overlook what he has done since. What made Pavarotti so likeable what his spontaneity – the radiant naturalness of his tenor, the freshness of his delivery of Italian words in his [...]

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