Bozena Nemtsova is one of the foremost Czech authors of the 19th century and among the greatest storytellers, with her treasure trove of fairy tales. Her stories also enjoy great popularity in Russia: The Twelve Months translated by Nikolai Leskov, provides the basis for Rodion Shchedrin's opera, A Christmas Tale. With traces of familiar fairy tales such as Cinderella and Snow White, the story tells of a beautiful, hardworking but unloved stepdaughter and her search for a violet in the snow. Ultimately she receives help from the months of the year and her kindheartedness is rewarded.
MORE»
| List | $81.00 |
Bozena Nemtsova is one of the foremost Czech authors of the 19th century and among the greatest storytellers, with her treasure trove of fairy tales. Her stories also enjoy great popularity in Russia: The Twelve Months translated by Nikolai Leskov, provides the basis for Rodion Shchedrins new opera, A Christmas Tale. With traces of familiar fairy tales such as Cinderella and Snow White,the story tells of a beautiful, hardworking but unloved stepdaughter and her search for a violet in the snow. Ultimately she receives help from the months of the year and her kindheartedness is rewarded.
MORE»
| List | $81.00 |
Gerald Barrys new opera is based on Lewis Carrolls two beloved books, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. As with Barry's last opera, the lauded The Importance of Being Earnest, the composer has created the libretto himself from the authors original texts. Thus, the work remains faithful to many aspects of the Alice story but is trimmed and compressed into acompact 70-minute opera in one act. Barry's characteristic highspeed energy and riotous sense of humour propel the action forward in this surreal plunge into the depths of Wonderland. MORE»
| List | $75.00 |
SYNOPSIS
Aribert Reimann's 'Trilogie lyrique' is based on three plays by Maurice Maeterlinck:
In L'Intruse, a family is sitting at the table with their blind grandfather. They are waiting for the doctor to arrive and tend to his daughter who is lying ill in bed after having given birth: her new-born son has not yet made a single sound. The old man senses that something is wrong due to the uneasy atmosphere in the room. “Who is sitting in our midst?” he asks. He is the only one who cansee the presence of death.
Intérieur: Once again a family is gathered round the table in the evening, but this time we observe the action from outside, looking through the window with the grandfather and a stranger: no sound can be heard. Outside the house, the stranger reports that the eldest daughter has drowned and that he has pulled her out of the river. Although the corpse is already being carried through the village to the family, the grandfather cannot bring himself to destroy this idyll.
La Mort de Tintagiles: The young Tintagiles is told a story about a mysterious castle and the aged queen who has all potential heirsto the throne murdered. His siblings sense that Tintagiles has been summoned to the castle to be murdered, but nobody openly expresses this fact. It is the sinister messengers of death from the interludes, now visible as the queens servants, who ful?l her demand and snatch the sleeping boy from his sisters'arms.
Commentary
'In comparison with his Medea for example with its stormy outbreaks of emotion and violence, Reimann's score is worked in an impressive refinement of sound. It begins with rumbling, hesitating and expressive music in the first section, demanding highly ingenious sound effects from the lower strings including tapping and faltering glissandos in its noisy expression of mortal fear. Inthe second part, the woodwind formation plays at times almost in chamber music fashion and is then suddenly painfully shrill. The third part luxuriates and rages in its rich, full orchestration. The manner in which Reimann displays his mastery in textural shading, the invention of sounds welling up and fading away, the rhythmic and melodic capacity of suffering and the music's inner violence are all utterly compelling.'(Wolfgang Schreiber, Opernwelt, November 2017)
MORE»
| List | $72.00 |
