June And July Issues Of Opera News Magazines
I've been a bit lazy recently in getting my posts about the always fascinating magazine Opera News , so I'lll combine coverage of June and July . The June issue has extensive information about the many great Summer music festivals about to begin , and many of these have opera performances, both staged and in concert form . The world fampous Tanglewood festival in Massachusetts, Summer home of the Boston symphony , celebrates its 75th anniversary , and renowned Swiss conductor Charles Dutoit will lead a performance of the quasi-operatic oratorio "The Damnation of Faust" by Hector Berlioz . The Boston symphony will play a variety of concerts under a variety of emoinent conductors . The Ravinia festival in Illionois is the Summer home of the Chicago symphony , Among the vocal offerings there are familiar operas by Mozart and rarities by Kurt Weill and Franz Schreker .
The Aspen festival in Colorado will feature a production of John Harbison's operatic version of The Great Gatsby, premiered about a decade ago at the Met . The San Francisco opera has a brief Summer season with productions of Mozart's The Magic Flute,Verdi's Attila, and Nixon in China by John Adams . Te Santa Fe New Mexico opera , which performs in its own special outdoor theater will have productions of Tosca, Arabella by Richard Strauss , and interesting rarities such as King Roger by Karol Szymanowski and Rossini's Maometto Secondo .
The Caramoor festival ,located in Westchester county just north of New York, will offer a Rossini rarity called Ciro in Babilonia conducted by Bel Canto specialist Will Crutchfield with the resident Orchestra of St. Lukes on NYC. The Glimmerglass opera festival in Cooperstown,NY, home of Baseball , willl perform the 17th century French baroque opera Armida by Jean Baptiste Lully ,Lost In The Stars by Kurt Weill , and Verdi's familiar Aida .
The Bard college Summer festival ,just north of New York , will feature among other things, the rarely performed opera Le Roi Malgre Lui (the king in spite of himself by 19th century French composer Emmanuel Chabrier . The Lincoln Center festival, which features dance ,drama and film as well as music , will offer the N.Y. premiere of Emile , by Finnish composer kaaia Saariaho , one of today's leading women composers .
The July issue focuses on the art song repertoire , with interviews with the renowned Dutch soprano Elly Ameling and Canadian baritone Gerald Finley , both renowned fo rsinging German lieder and other song repertoire . Russell Platt,music editor of the New Yorker magazine , discusses the great lider of Austrian composer Hugo Wolf (1860-1903 ), In the June issue , an article called "The Girls of Summer", has brief interviews with such renowned sopranos and mezzos as Elisabeth Futral, Stepanie Blythe , Patricia Racette , Ewa Podles , and others on their plans for this Summer .
Opera News roving correspondants have reviews of opera performances from New York,Chicao, Dallas, Brussels , Glasgow,Milan, Houston,Miami , Madrid, Toronto, Berlin and London . There a re CD reviews of new recordings of Massenet's Werther, Wagner's Meistersinger , Parsifal, and new releases from Sony Classical's issues of historic Met performances from the past, as well as song and aria recitals by various singers .
There are also DVD reviews of live performances of such operas as Berg's Lulu, Mozart's Abduction from the Seraglio , Aida, La Boheme, and Verdi's Macbeth from a variety of leading opera houses around Europe , Even if you arne't an opera fan, Opera News could very well make you desirous of becoming one !