hugoshirley.blogspot.com
Fatal Conclusions: Publications & papers
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Reflections, Reviews and News from the worlds of Opera and Classical Music. Melancholy and Allegory in Die Frau ohne Schatten', Cambridge Opera Journal. Vol 24 no. 1 (March 2012), 67-97. In Search of Strauss' (Review-article: Charles Youmans (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Richard Strauss), Journal of the Royal Musical Association. Vol 137 no.1 (2012), 187-192. Vol 5 no. 2 (July 2011), 82-85. Vol 91 No. 3 (2010), 449-451. A selective performance history’, in Gary Kahn (ed.) Otello. Hearts of Darkness: ...
hugoshirley.blogspot.com
Fatal Conclusions: January 2015
http://hugoshirley.blogspot.com/2015_01_01_archive.html
Reflections, Reviews and News from the worlds of Opera and Classical Music. Thursday, 29 January 2015. Vienna Staatsoper: Khovanshchina and The Cunning Little Vixen; Theater an der Wien: Les Pêcheurs de perles. From OPERA, February 2014, pp. 171-175]. The two new productions unveiled in the Austrian capital in the second week of November could not have been more different: a light-hearted, satirical and pop-culture-savvy Les Pêcheurs de perles. There were hints of The Truman Show. Schenk’s producti...
songstageandstory.blogspot.com
Song, Stage and Story: How can opera survive in the 21st Century?
http://songstageandstory.blogspot.com/2015/05/how-can-opera-survive-in-21st-century.html
Song, Stage and Story. Thursday, 28 May 2015. How can opera survive in the 21st Century? I'm trying to think over this tremendously wide subject ahead of a conference hosted at the Royal Opera House on 6 and 7 June. In preparation I've been reading John Culshaw's extraordinary reminiscence of recording Wagner's Ring Cycle. For Decca in the 1960s, Ring Resounding. John Culshaw Ring Resounding. Martin Secker and Warburg, 1967, p261-262). As part of the Solti/Decca Ring. The Golden Ring' (1964). Opera Singi...
songstageandstory.blogspot.com
Song, Stage and Story: Opera: telescoping with the voice
http://songstageandstory.blogspot.com/2015/05/opera-telescoping-with-voice.html
Song, Stage and Story. Wednesday, 20 May 2015. Opera: telescoping with the voice. From roh.org.uk. I went to see - and hear - the final performance of Szymanowski's King Roger. At the Royal Opera House last night. I liked it. The music is colourful, just this side of lurid. The orchestra spills out into the side boxes (the harps) and there's an off-stage organ, not to mention the chorus of course. It made me think about the recent trends for opera: the fad for immersive, site-specific and general close-p...
songstageandstory.blogspot.com
Song, Stage and Story: Xerxes, Hampstead Garden Opera
http://songstageandstory.blogspot.com/2015/04/xerxes-hampstead-garden-opera.html
Song, Stage and Story. Wednesday, 29 April 2015. Xerxes, Hampstead Garden Opera. Tonight I saw Hampstead Garden Opera's production of Handel's Xerxes. In Italian). Xerxes. Struggled when it was first heard almost 300 years ago. It broke the opera seria. Mould by trying some humour and going easy on the da capo. Indeed the comedy in Xerxes. Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom). Whatever the new thing is, you probably still need a story and good singing to make an opera work on stage. Royal Opera House News.
songstageandstory.blogspot.com
Song, Stage and Story: Into The Little Hill, Shadwell Opera, Limehouse
http://songstageandstory.blogspot.com/2015/04/into-little-hill-shadwell-opera.html
Song, Stage and Story. Sunday, 19 April 2015. Into The Little Hill, Shadwell Opera, Limehouse. I was so glad to have caught Shadwell Opera. S final performance of George Benjamin's chamber opera Into The Little Hill. I was in the audience but concerned with whether the performance was catering for all the audience. Odd. In other words, I felt pressed to examine how different I might be from the people sitting around me. Then, as the performance progressed, the show itself pulled my attention ...Supercond...
hugoshirley.blogspot.com
Fatal Conclusions: Semperoper Dresden: Der Rosenkavalier and Elektra
http://hugoshirley.blogspot.com/2015/03/semperoper-dresden-der-rosenkavalier.html
Reflections, Reviews and News from the worlds of Opera and Classical Music. Sunday, 1 March 2015. Semperoper Dresden: Der Rosenkavalier and Elektra. From OPERA, March 2015, pp. 328-9]. The Semperoper’s Strauss-anniversary celebrations came full circle at the end of 2014 with the return, with a new cast, of Barbara Frey’s Elektra. With which it had all started in January. The main attraction, however, was a reprise of Uwe Eric Laufenberg’s 2000 production of Der Rosenkavalier. Manuela Uhl sang a powerful,...
hugoshirley.blogspot.com
Fatal Conclusions: September 2014
http://hugoshirley.blogspot.com/2014_09_01_archive.html
Reflections, Reviews and News from the worlds of Opera and Classical Music. Friday, 26 September 2014. WNO: Guillaume Tell; ROH: Barbiere. Is there a fundamental, insuperable problem with staging Rossini’s Guillaume Tell. On a budget, without the resources to conjure up the sense of scale that was part of grand opéra. 8217;s appeal and raison d’être. Friday, 19 September 2014. Benjamin Britten, when seeing his Peter Grimes. 8212;also starring Stuart Skelton—still fresh in the mind from last season,...
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Fatal Conclusions: August 2014
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Reflections, Reviews and News from the worlds of Opera and Classical Music. Monday, 18 August 2014. Travels in Germany and Austria. It's such common practice to let blogs lie dormant that I don't feel I should waste much time on excuses for my absence. I've been busy; I apologise. Some of that busyness is related to a fair bit of travelling around. The latest issue of OPERA contains my reviews of an intriguing, often outstandingly well sung Die Frau ohne Schatten. And I don't think I'm the first to note ...
hugoshirley.blogspot.com
Fatal Conclusions: The Spectator
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Reflections, Reviews and News from the worlds of Opera and Classical Music. Follow the links below for my pieces in The Spectator. The Girl of the Golden West. ENO; Mosè in Egitto. WNO (11 October 2014) more. WNO; Il barbiere di Siviglia. Royal Opera (27 September 2014) more. Edinburgh Festival: Les Troyens. Mariinsky Theatre; Guglielmo Tell. Teatro Regio di Torino (6 September 2014) more. Opera Up Close; The Immortal Hour. Finborough Theatre (30 August 2014) more. Salzburg Festival (16 August 2014) more.
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