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MabelJane
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« on: 20:12:59, 15-07-2008 » |
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I was very struck by the duet for soprano and tenor sung live on In Tune this evening, which I caught as I was driving home. I was especially impressed by the tenor's fine voice, dark-toned with a bright clear ringing top. Full details haven't appeared yet on the InTune page but there's this:
"....With live music from Opera Holland Park's latest production, Iolanta...." Not a Tchaikovsky opera I know at all. I can't LA now but I will.
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Merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.
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time_is_now
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« Reply #1 on: 12:32:46, 17-07-2008 » |
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"... With live music from Opera Holland Park's latest production, Iolanta ..." In that case it was presumably Peter Auty and Orla Boylan. Time(2) and I wanted to go to see that production but unfortunately there are no £10 tickets left, and since the next option is £39 (discounted to £36 for students   ) I think we're giving it a miss. |
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The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
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marbleflugel
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« Reply #2 on: 12:46:36, 17-07-2008 » |
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I heard that 8)Django Bates was on with Rafferty yesterday (what penance must be done for quality work) with some new Will Shakes incidentals. I made it to Rafferty's first link yesterday before the old spots before the eyes and silent scream kicked in, further when finding that I has I turned the Pc off the i player kept coming back up again.
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'...A celebrity is someone who didn't get the attention they needed as an adult'
Arnold Brown
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #3 on: 13:48:57, 17-07-2008 » |
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I made it to Rafferty's first link yesterday before the old spots before the eyes and silent scream kicked in
[cackle of sympathy heard from slavic lands...] I wouldn't put IOLANTA near the top of my favourite Tchaik operas, but perhaps I should revisit it? There's lots of beautiful music in it, but it doesn't seem to hang together as an opera? Perhaps it was just a particularly bad penny-dreadful production at the Bolshoi Theatre which put me off  Rimsky, however, thought it was Tchaikovsky's weakest work - although he was probably in a snit over the failure of his own remounting of the MLADA project, which failed to capture public support. Tchaikovsky himself said that stories about Knights Of Olde "didn't interest him in the slightest", and he was worried that the plot outline was too similar to THE SORCERESS ("Charodeika"). The cult of the phthisic heroine in Italian opera was rather reworked by Tchaikovsky, several of whose heroines are burdened with debilitating conditions (Iolanta is blind, Odette's been turned into a swan by a mad scientist..)... it was a sort of somewhat dubious "fashion" at the time, people who might otherwise have led happy and productive lives had they not been blind, mad, consumptive, swans etc. To a certain extent this kind of "fairytale" plot ("nice person born into some wretched and undeserved condition") is still with us, viz "Edward Scissorhands". I suppose Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" is the archetype? I'm not sure I find the ending of IOLANTA (in which she recovers her sight through being told that she lacks it) very worthwhile in this respect - quite apart, of course, from being entirely implausible  |
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
- Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
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MabelJane
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« Reply #4 on: 19:34:01, 17-07-2008 » |
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"... With live music from Opera Holland Park's latest production, Iolanta ..." In that case it was presumably Peter Auty and Orla Boylan. Yes, and they sounded very good. Time(2) and I wanted to go to see that production but unfortunately there are no £10 tickets left, and since the next option is £39 (discounted to £36 for students ) I think we're giving it a miss. I'm sorry you couldn't get tickets, tinners; from what I heard on the radio there'll be some fine singing even though......... .....she recovers her sight through being told that she lacks it) ................. being entirely implausible .............the plot's silly. |
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Merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.
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MabelJane
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« Reply #5 on: 11:04:40, 18-07-2008 » |
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"... With live music from Opera Holland Park's latest production, Iolanta ..." In that case it was presumably Peter Auty......... Well, well, just googled him and discovered that he was the original Walking in the Air choirboy in 1982 in The Snowman film, uncredited until the film was remastered 20 years later (according to Wiki). |
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Merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #6 on: 12:48:05, 18-07-2008 » |
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Well, well, just googled him and discovered that he was the original Walking in the Air choirboy in 1982 in The Snowman film, uncredited until the film was remastered 20 years later (according to Wiki).
He sang in the ill-fated ANNA BOLENA performed in the Tower Of London Moat 2-3 years ago (in which the scenery all blew away and the rain poured down etc). He was smashing, absolutely top-notch performance - the more so given the wretched disaster happening all around him as he manfully soldiered on with it. |
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
- Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
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MabelJane
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« Reply #7 on: 14:36:32, 18-07-2008 » |
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(in which the scenery all blew away and the rain poured down etc).
Summer, was it? He was smashing, absolutely top-notch performance - the more so given the wretched disaster happening all around him as he manfully soldiered on with it.
I like him more and more! Must look out for his name in R3 schedules. Iolanta may have a ridiculous plot but I'd like to hear him sing more of it, though I very much doubt the BBC will be recording and broadcasting this production!  |
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Merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #8 on: 14:47:35, 18-07-2008 » |
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though I very much doubt the BBC will be recording and broadcasting this production! I think they broadcast IOLANTA as part of The Tchaikovsky & Not Much Stravinsky Experience - it went out around 3am for all those who'd not already dozed off N |
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
- Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
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Il Grande Inquisitor
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« Reply #9 on: 23:09:28, 25-10-2008 » |
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I've just returned from the RFH where the LPO put on a concert performance of Tchaikovsky's Iolanta. That duet MJ wrote about is certainly the highlight, but there's a wonderful baritone aria for Robert, which some might know from Hvorostovsky's first recital disc for Philips. David Nice gave a most interesting pre-performance talk, illustrated with musical excerpts, making links between this work and The Nutcracker, with which it originally shared a double bill. Tonight's performance was being recorded, but whether for R3 or for release on LPO's own label I have no idea.
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Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency
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MabelJane
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« Reply #10 on: 23:57:06, 25-10-2008 » |
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but there's a wonderful baritone aria for Robert, which some might know from Hvorostovsky's first recital disc for Philips.
Oh yes, that's the CD I mentioned ages ago I think. I wonder where my boxes of CDs are... Glad you enjoyed your evening, IGI. |
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Merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.
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time_is_now
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« Reply #11 on: 20:17:18, 26-10-2008 » |
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I've just returned from the RFH where the LPO put on a concert performance of Tchaikovsky's Iolanta. That duet MJ wrote about is certainly the highlight, but there's a wonderful baritone aria for Robert, which some might know from Hvorostovsky's first recital disc for Philips. David Nice gave a most interesting pre-performance talk, illustrated with musical excerpts ... How interesting! The very same David Nice gave a pre-performance talk illustrated with musical excerpts before the BBC SO Spanish-themed concert at the Barbican on Friday! (He doesn't know there's no tilde over the 'n' in habanera though.  |
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The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
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