Category: Uncategorized

  • Can Opera Be Woke?

    Verdi’s 1887 opera Otello is based on Shakespeare’s great tragedy Othello, or the Moor of Venice. Othello, a heroic general who is manipulated by his aide-de-camp, Iago, into his tragic events leading to his own destruction, is a role considered by many to be the pinnacle of a classically-trained actor’s career. As such, well into the twentieth century,…

  • Don Giovanni in the Age of #MeToo

    Does this opera still work in the age of #metoo and #TimesUp? Should it still be performed? Some opera companies are trying to re-think their productions, with mixed results. Here are reviews of and press releases for some recent performances. Opera North’s Revived Don Giovanni Misfires in the Age of #MeToo Review: Don Giovanni for the #metoo…

  • Don Giovanni in the Hood

    All the trigger warnings. “Here’s how Peter Sellars describes his [updating of Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni]: ‘There’s a rape and a murder in the first 90 seconds of Don Giovanni … It’s probably the greatest opera ever written. … Don Giovanni is an opera that, 200 years later, we’re still struggling to try to understand.’” (From a…

  • Just A Little Music in the Night

    Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik in various adaptations. It isn’t just for ringtones. Kids’ version: Adapted for an Italian black-and-white film about Mozart’s life: Jazz show choir version: Metal version: Tenacious D (Jack Black and Kyle Gass version [Warning! Offensive language] — starts at 1:03):  

  • So Long, Farewell

    The finale of Haydn’s Symphony no. 45 in F-sharp minor (“Farewell”). This scene from the 1940 movie Waterloo Bridge uses the same trope.

  • Sonata Form

    Of all the new musical forms that developed in the second half of the eighteenth century, sonata form is the most important. In fact, it is arguably the most important musical development of the past thee hundred years or so. Keep in mind: sonata form and a sonata are NOT the same thing. As you recall from your study…

  • Bach vs. Handel: Oratorio edition

    Crucifixion (Hans Ballung Grien, c. 1507) Bach composed two settings of the Passion story (the biblical narrative of the suffering and death of Christ), one from the Gospel of Matthew, the other from the Gospel of John. These large-scale oratorios were meant to be performed during Holy Week, when there was a ban on opera performances.…

  • Late Baroque: Gimme Coffee

    (Battle of Vienna, 1683) Throughout the 17th century, Europe was fighting the Ottoman Turks. The Turks were narrowly prevented from seizing Vienna in 1683, and came close to the city walls again in 1716. Although the Viennese and the Turks were mortal-ish enemies, Vienna was swept with a craze for a new beverage introduced by…

  • Cantata BWV 82: Ich habe genug

    Ich habe genug (I have enough) is one of the roughly 200 cantatas Bach composed for the Thomaskirche in Leipzig. The soloist is a bass, and the solo instrument (a.k.a. obbligato) is oboe. The text is a gloss (in German) on a passage in the Gospel of Luke 2:25-35, in which Mary and Joseph bring the…

  • The Fugue Across the Arts

    Fugue (1914) by the synaesthetic Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky. The English Romantic writer Thomas De Quincey (most famous for Confessions of an Opium-Eater) wrote an essay in 1849 entitled “Dream Fugue,” which he deliberately structured in the form of a fugue. Here is an excerpt (it begins with a musical “marking,” tumultuosissimamente, i.e. extremely tumultuously): Tumultuosissimamente.Passion…