The Classical Music Network (English) Thu, 06 Nov 2025 04:07:18 +0100 http://www.concertonet.com/ http://www.concertonet.com/images/concertonet.jpg http://www.concertonet.com/
O. Jorjikia, C. Byrne, I. Samoilov (© Ros Kavanagh)


Of Puccini’s most frequently performed operas (Manon Lescaut, La Bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly and Turandot), Butterfly has fared most poorly over time, in terms of posterity. The “Orientalist” view of the victimized Asian girl was not considered patronizing at the time of the opera’s creation, but times have changed. Even after European countries lost their colonial empires in Africa and Asia, this outdated view prevailed for much of the second half of the twentieth century. The Korean and Vietnam Wars continued to confirm this]]>... Sun, 02 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=17261
B. Lubman/C. Czernowin (© Peter Serling/Wikipedia Commons)


“”The whole feeling of our existence now is very much a dusk. The horizon is shadowed and does not bode well. Yet... this can still move and create an opening for fragility that is connected to hope.”
Chaya Czernowin


The names of esteemed conductors immediately summon up measures of the works where they are associated. This is difficult with Brad Lubman. Yes, he knows the “standards”, the “top 20s”. But his genius is giving contemporary music a clarity, a control, and an emotional relationship to any audience.

... Wed, 29 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=17245
J. Mamora (© Josafat Zemleduch)


“I am a moment illuminating eternity...I am affirmation...I am ecstasy.”
Alexander Scriabin


“My piano is to me what a ship is to the sailor, what a steed is to the Arab. It is the intimate personal depository of everything that stirred wildly in my brain during the most impassioned days of my youth. It was there that all my wishes, all my dreams, all my joys, and all my sorrows lay.”
Franz Liszt


Alexander Scriabin’s direction in his Fifth Sonata could partly characterize the piano personality of Jonathan M]]>... Sat, 25 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=17239
S. Rivard (© OCM/Tam Photography)


The Orchestre Classique de Montréal celebrated the bicentennial of the birth of Johann Strauss (1825‑1899) with a concert featuring his music as well as some by Franz Lehár, who composed in the same genre. Needless to say, Die Fledermaus was prominently featured, specifically its overture and several arias and ensembles. The singers featured were resident artists of the Atelier Lyrique of the Opéra de Montréal.


Despite most selected excerpts being the most familiar, Simon Rivard and his orchestra managed to give the music a fresh outlook. He also managed t]]>... Fri, 24 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=17249
P. Jarvi, A. Pärt, Estonian Festival Orchestra (© Kaupo Kikkas)


“Tintinnabulation is like this. Here I am alone with silence. I have discovered that it is enough when a single note is beautifully played. This note, or a silent beat, or a moment of silence comfort me. The silence must be longer. This music is about the silence. The sounds are there to surround the silence.”
Arvo Pärt


“I could compare my music to white light which contains all colours. Only a prism can divide the colours and make them appear; this prism could be the spirit of the listener.”
Arvo Pärt<]]>... Thu, 23 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=17235
M. Jones, J. McCullough, I. Mustovoi, G. Clarke, S. Brady, J. Burnell, A. Khudaverdiyev, S. Tester, T. Guo, F. Razavi (© Pádraig Grant)


Rossini’s last Italian opera, Il viaggio a Reims, ossia l’albergo del giglio d’oro, was a ceremonial pièce d’occasion conceived for the coronation of France’s King Charles X, during the brief period of the restoration of the monarchy. First performed in 1825, Rossini, never expecting it to be played beyond its first four performances, later cannibalized much of it for his bittersweet comic opera Le Comte Ory.


The idea of restoring an ode to ]]>... Mon, 20 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=17253
E. McCormack, M.E. Williams (center) with chorus
(© Jennifer Packard)


“Here lies Henry Purcell Esquire, who left life and is gone to that blessed place where only his harmony can be exceeded.”
Epitaph on Purcell’s obelisk


When first ascending to the ruins of Carthage in Tunisia, my mind was murmuring Berlioz’ Trojans. At the top amid the Carthage monuments, its graceful pillars, the wine‑dark Mediterranean Sea, the silhouette of Sicily in the background, the mind immediately morphed into Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas.


Not init]]>... Mon, 20 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=17228
C. Rochford, E. Gwilym (© Pádraig Grant)


Sadly, the operas of Zemlinsky are rarely performed, despite being powerful and musically rich. Luckily, one of his short operas was featured in this year’s edition of Ireland’s Wexford Festival of Opera as one of their “pocket operas”, which are either short operas without intermission, or works of short duration abridged to fit in ninety minute slots, also uninterrupted. Typically, four such operas are presented, in addition to three main ones, allowing one to see two pocket operas and one full‑length work per day – quite a generous offering.


Like]]>... Sun, 19 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=17251
B. de Sá, S. Junker (© Pádraig Grant)


The biggest challenge today in producing Handel’s operas (and baroque opera in general) is that these works were written as vehicles for virtuoso singers. With Gluck’s reforms and the advent of Romanticism, the public’s taste changed. Beautiful voices were still admired, but they alone were no longer sufficient. Beyond emotions generated by impressive voices, some semblance of a plot, preferably with interesting pacing, was needed.


As many roles were written for castrati, the modern day revival of baroque operas started with the appearance of countertenors, such a]]>... Sat, 18 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=17259
S. Richmond (© Pádraig Grant)


Carmen is unquestionably one of the most perfect operas ever composed. It features an inspired setting, a marvelous orchestration and brilliantly-conceived vocal parts, and, most of all, intense drama. It was highly‑admired by no less than Gustav Mahler, who championed the work while Director of the Vienna Court Opera. It’s thought of as an indestructible work, a glorious stage success no matter whose vision we are witnessing. Carmen herself could be interpreted by a mezzo or a soprano; dialogue can be spoken or sung; the opera could be set in Seville, as originally conceive]]>... Sat, 18 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=17254
V. Gorbunova (© Pádraig Grant)


One of the four “Factory Operas” given by the Wexford Festival of Opera, Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, elicited doubts as to how it could be abridged to fit Wexford’s criteria: that it should last no more than ninety minutes; that it mustn’t have an intermission; that all roles are to be assumed only by current or former singers of the Wexford Factory program for young singers; and that it would be presented with piano (rather than orchestral) accompaniment.


Happily, my own fears were unfounded, and the experience was delightful. Firstly, the young]]>... Fri, 17 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=17260
Sphinx Virtuosi (© Scott Jackson)


“Music of our time is granted little opportunity for glorification or flooding people with illumination. The flames of Hiroshima have gone beyond all that.”
Hans Werner Henze


“... with an eye made quiet by the power/
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,/
We see into the life of things.”
William Wordsworth, Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey


The title “Sphinx Virtuosi” is as deceiving as the Egyptian monster himself. Nothing is enigmatic or puzzling or riddle‑like about th]]>... Fri, 17 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=17223
M. Lindsay, D. Williams (© Bruce Zinger)


Perhaps in the minority, I haven’t been a fan of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte for years. I certainly acknowledge its music is sublime, with several of its arias among the most memorable in opera, but Schikaneder’s libretto is problematic. It’s further complicated by directors revering it as one of the noblest works ever. Worse, they interpret Act II’s notorious Masonic rites as something sacred.


Since my initial exposure to Die Zauberflöte in my late teens, I’ve found the argument nonsensical and the Masonic rites puerile. I couldn’t understand how Sa]]>... Wed, 15 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=17234
B. Liatoshynsky/L. Botstein (© Bard)



“A composer whose voice does not read the heart of the nation has less than no value. I always felt myself to be a national composer in the fullest sense of the word, and I will remain a national composer, proving this not through words but deeds!”
Boris Liatoshynsky


“Orchestration is part of the very soul of the work. A work is thought out in terms of the orchestra, certain tone-colors being inseparable from it in the mind of its creator and native to it from the hour of its birth.”
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

... Mon, 13 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=17217
S. Radvanovsky (© Cory Weaver)


Luigi Cherubini (1760-1842), championed by Beethoven and Napoleon I (whose director of music he became), registers unfairly for today’s music enthusiast as little more than the briefest of historical footnotes.


A prolific composer of string quartets, church motets, masses, and in excess of 20 operas, it is in this last arena that Cherubini is now remembered~ and of these, it is his 1797 Médée, usually heard in Italian as Medea, which is best‑known.


One wonders how it is that this man, a former child prodigy who performed for the]]>... Sat, 11 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=17220
I. Davies (© Michael Cooper)


Though few consider Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice to be one of the most influential operas of all time, it most certainly is. During the age of Enlightenment (from the late 17th to the early 19th Century), the authority of the Monarchy and the Church were questioned, but composers who were advocates of it also questioned the excesses of baroque opera, particularly its stolid characters, predictably superficial plots and above all its exuberant, florid vocal passages and liberties taken by the era’s celebrated singers.


Gluck thought it necessary to rein in the opera]]>... Thu, 09 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=17227
(© Matthew Martinez)


“Was vergangen, aufersteh’n!” The inevitability of resurrection after death is key to the arc of Mahler’s massive Second Symphony. Perhaps the piece itself was an inevitable choice for Dudamel, now embarking on his final season of leading the LA Phil after 16 years, to perform with his group and take on tour. The Second is a massive piece that plays to the orchestra’s strengths: powerful brass, tender strings, impeccable woodwinds, and an orchestra with the flare for the dramatic, particularly in one of the most thrilling acoustics in the country. Zubin Mehta and the ]]>... Thu, 09 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=17208
Ensembles in the Crypt (© Steven Pisano)


“Where Bach polishes the surfaces, Buxtehude leaves in some grit, an enormous feeling of rhythm and tension. I like that.”
Anonymous


“I guess I’d like people to be able to forget a lot of things and just enjoy the beauty of harmony and melody for a moment.”
Carolyn Shaw


The concept of Andew Ousley’s newest “Death of Classical” production is like a verbal polyphony for the absurdly complex musical polyphony of Johannes Ockeghem.


What did we have here? The faux‑taper-li]]>... Wed, 08 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=17201
I. Niederhoffer & Parlando (© Rebecca Kay)


“There are only two kinds of music: German music and bad music.”
H.L. Menken


“Mendelssohn’s contribution to landscape painting consisted in making the observer always the same man: Mendelssohn himself.”
Virgil Thomson


Loath to make the conductor the center of a music review, one has little choice but to make Parlando’s Ian Niederhoffer the star of last night’s concert. Yes, his conducting was fine enough, and his energy brought the chamber‑plus orchestra to top form. More to the point, Mr. N]]>... Tue, 07 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=17196
R. Minasi, J. Ehnes
(© Liliana Morsia para el Mozarteum Argentino)


Created in 1952, the Mozarteum Argentino is one of Argentina and Latin America’s leading music organizations. The present concert was part of its annual season of concerts held at the venerable Teatro Colón, itself inaugurated in 1908, the most attractive opera house in the Americas, replete with a glorious history rivalling Europe’s greatest musical meccas. In addition to its well-attended programming, the Mozarteum Argentino offers concerts in the provinces through branches it’s established countrywide. It also provides scholarships to musicians and ]]>... Mon, 06 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=17200
G. de Glydenfeldt (©  Leonardo Pecar)


It’s always a delight to attend a performance of Don Carlo, certainly one of Verdi’s best works. It’s also his most Meyerbeerian, having been premiered in French, in five acts, at the Paris Opera in 1867, in the style of Meyerbeer’s spectacular “grand operas.” Meyerbeer’s grand operas had historic themes, such as the plight of the Protestants in France in Les Huguenots, or the blasphemous John of Leiden in the Netherlands during the early days of the Reformation in Le Prophète. They also involved dazzling grand spectacle and a quintet or sextet of superlative singer]]>... Sat, 04 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=17218
(© Carlos Villamayor)


Premiered in 1965 in Stuttgart and created by South African choreographer John Cranko, the ballet Onegin follows the same storyline as in Tchaikovsky’s opera Eugene Onegin, scene by scene. But oddly, it doesn’t use a single note from it. This may seem frustrating, as Tchaikovsky’s operatic repertoire is unfailingly and irresistibly lyrical. It’s also, fittingly, ballabile, positively made for dancing. However, Cranko was wise not to use the opera’s music, as it would have relegated the ballet to a mere curiosity, derivative of the opera. Instead, it’s a fascinating standR]]>... Fri, 03 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=17207
K. Proshina, S. Costello (© Michael Cooper)


In the world of operatic production, the director is crucial. When the director is of the calibre of Damiano Michieletto, Christof Loy or Robert Carsen, one’s enjoyment is greatly enhanced. The latter’s ici recent staging of Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice is a case in point – it’s a marriage of creativity and intelligence from a brilliant mind that makes the experience memorably moving. Alas, these directors are the exception, not the rule, in today’s opera world.


British director Am]]>... Mon, 29 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=17237
(© Opéra de Montréal/Vivien Gaumand)


Don Giovanni, described by German Romantic author E.T.A. Hoffmann (1776‑1822) as “the opera of operas,” is a splendid work, thanks to Mozart’s sublime music and Lorenzo da Ponte’s brilliant libretto. Indeed, rare is the opera whose libretto is at least as good as its score. Da Ponte’s work can be appreciated on several levels, thus offering a plethora of possibilities to a talented and inspired stage director.


Intriguingly, the fables of Don Juan and Faust have inspired Western minds no end over the past three centuries. Ever since Tirso de Molina’s ... Sat, 27 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=17186
A. Clyne/S. Childress (© Christina Kernohan/Karolina Heller)


“Lend your ears to music, open your eyes to painting, and stop thinking! Just ask yourself whether the work has enabled you to walk about into a hitherto unknown world. If the answer is yes, what more do you want?”
Wassily Kandinsky


“A painter paints his pictures on canvas, A composer paints his pictures on silence.”
Leopold Stokowski


In one of David Mamet’s classic lines, Danny DeVito screams to an associate in The Heist: “Everybody needs money. That’s why they call it mone]]>... Thu, 18 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=17175