The Met Live in HD presents Il Trovatore on Saturday, April 30

By -

The Metropolitan Opera’s presentation of Verdi’s Il Trovatore will be transmitted live in HD to movie theaters on Saturday, April 30 at 1:00 pm ET as part of The Met’s groundbreaking Live in HD series. We hope you will let your readers know about the opera being shown in your local theaters. Photos, videos and audio clips are available by logging in through the link below. Please let us know if we can help you with further information.

Four of today’s leading Verdi stars—Sondra Radvanovsky, Dolora Zajick, Marcelo Álvarez, and Dmitri Hvorostovsky—sing the main roles in this fast-paced production by David McVicar first seen at the Met in 2009. Marco Armiliato conducts the opera, which features some of Verdi’s most famous music, including the “Anvil Chorus.” Renée Fleming, star of this Saturday’s Live in HD transmission of Capriccio, will host the intermission interviews.

The cast and production of Il Trovatore have received impressive critical acclaim. The New York Times noted David McVicar’s “clear-headed, psychologically insightful and fluid staging” and the Wall Street Journal wrote “A streamlined staging and breakneck pace made the most of the opera's ferocious, larger-than-life conflicts and emotions.” The New York Times also said that “Mr. Álvarez…has a real tenor voice, full of throbbing warmth and ping. Mr. Hvorostovsky…once again makes a Verdi role his own, singing with an alluring combination of dusky colors, creamy legato and robust top notes. Sondra Radvanovsky gives an intensely expressive and musically honest performance, letting phrases fly with bright, soaring sound and shaping passages with pianissimo tenderness. Dolora Zajick, a force of nature, sings Azucena with demonic ferocity, a woman obsessed.”

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Role of Music in Opera

By -
There are numerous books on the topic, and every composer, librettist, director, singer and audience member has their opinion as to what role the music should play in an opera. In a play without music, the words ought to support the meaning behind a character's actions. However, in the case of action movies, often times the action is what tells the story and there aren't words, just images to forward the plot. We might hear music to accompany action, build tension, but the action tells the story. Musicals tend to speak until the emotion of the moment just "has" to break out in song - unless it's something like "Mama Mia" where the dialog is the rails we travel on between songs; the songs themselves, written before the concept of the musical, are the focus of the production, while the story is secondary. Operas are a different beast. The music provides emotion to the words spoken, but it also plays the role of ambience when there is only action. In &quo
Read more

Episode 210b: Joyeuse le départ

By -
Image
Podcast:  Play in new window  |  Download Subscribe:  Apple Podcasts  |  Android  |  Google Play  |  Stitcher  |  TuneIn  |  RSS Provost Cunningham has Transmigrated, but to where! What is Dr Sage going to do with his body? And how can she bring home her friends, Abigail and Erasmus, without also bring home Cunningham? What are they going to say when they find the “skeleton” she’s hiding in her closet? Cast: Eddie Louise Clark  as Dr Sage Chip Clark  as Professor Savant Justin Bremer  as the Narrator Emily Riley Piatt  as Abigail Entwhistle, Calypso & Dean Stewart Written by  Eddie Louise Theme music by  Unwoman Sound Design by  Chip Michael
Read more

The Art of String Quartets by Brian Ferneyhough

By -
Image
When an artist sets paint to canvas, there are brush strokes used for different effects. Sometimes those strokes are subtle, imperceptible; they produce works of art like the Mona Lisa . Other times the very obvious nature of the stroke is the art, as in works by Van Gogh. With some composers of music, the notes on the page are their craft. How those notes translate into an aural experience is what defines some composers as great artists. Brian Ferneyhough has a masterful command of the techniques of putting notes on the page. These techniques are sometimes so subtle, even though written in black and white, they escape detection. Some of what he attempts with his music is just that, to escape detection, to bury the framework, diverting the ear away from the structure, so only the music is heard . The subtlety is so fine it is almost imperceptible. Even though he studied at several institutions, he is considered self-taught, studying scores from Boule
Read more