Rachid Ben Abdeslam News
Moroccan singer
- countertenor
- Morocco, France
- opera singer
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2024-04-23
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2014-01-15 12:36:00
We need to widen the definition of forbidden music
One of the highlights of 2013 was the publication of Michael Haas' Forbidden Music. While working as a producer for Decca Haas was responsible for the invaluable Entartete Musik series which provided a retrospective of composers and works banned by the Nazis; at the foot of this post is the CD of music by Berthold Goldschmidt from that series. Haas is currently research director of the Jewish Music Institute for Suppressed Music, based at the School of African and Oriental Studies of the University of London and is also chief executive of Coralfox, a classical music consultancy and production company. In Forbidden Music, which almost certainly will become the standard reference work on the subject, Haas looks at the Jewish composers and musicians banned by the Third Reich for being 'degenerate', and the consequences for music throughout the 20th century. With a subtitle of The Jewish composers banned […]
2013-11-29 01:13:48
Handel’s ‘Giulio Cesare’ — ‘If It Ain’t Baroque, Don’t Fix It’
He Came, He Saw, He Conquered Sometimes, we bloggers have to eat our own words. This was the case last Saturday night when, after posting a piece about the Metropolitan Opera’s new 2013-2014 radio season, I mentioned in connection with the proposed revival of a Baroque pastiche entitled The Enchanted Island that I wasn’t exactly “into” Baroque opera. David Daniels & Natalie Dessay in Giulio Cesare (artsatl.com) Wouldn’t you know it, but that very evening the PBS program Great Performances at the Met featured of all things (bite my tongue) George Frideric Handel’s 1724 masterpiece Giulio Cesare (“Julius Caesar”), one of the vocal and theatrical high points of that self-same Baroque era. What’s a blogger to do? Well, eat crow for one. For another, get down to business and discuss, digest, research, and review the performance practice of the very thing one fears and dreads. Putting it […]
2013-04-30 13:27:45
Classical Music Sir Colin Davies had pulled out of the LSO‘s concert performances of Turn of the Screw due to his deteriorating health, but in the end it turned out to be their first concert after his death. The orchestra’s Chairman & MD made lovely pre-concert tributes, but the greatest tribute of all was that they performed his choice for the Britten Centenary to perfection. Six superb well-matched soloists – Catherine Wyn-Rogers as the housekeeper, Sally Matthews as the governess, Katherine Broderick as Miss Jessel, Andrew Kennedy as Quint, Lucy Hall as Flora and an extraordinary performance from 11-year old Michael Clayton-Jolly – were complemented by beautiful playing from the small chamber orchestra under Richard Farnes. I’ve never heard it played & sung so well. Opera The Firework-Maker’s Daughter was a charming opera for young people staged in a very lo-tech minimalist style which suited the story-telling of Philip Pullman’s […]
2013-04-22 07:10:00
Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center, Balcony (Seat B18, $95). Conductor - Harry Bicket; Giulio Cesare - David Daniels, Curio (tribune) - John Moore, Cornelia (widow of Pompey) - Patricia Bardon, Sesto Pompeo (son of Pompey and Cornelia) - Alice Coote, Cleopatra (Queen of Egypt) - Natalie Dessay, Tolomeo (King of Egypt, Cleopatra's brother) - Christophe Dumaux, Achilla (general, advisor to Ptolemy) - Guido Loconsolo, Nireno (confidant of Cleopatra and Ptolemy) - Rachid Ben Abdeslam. Story. Before Caesar has a chance to reconcile with Pompey, Ptolemy kills Pompey and offers his head to Caesar as a goodwill gesture. This causes great grief for Pompey’s widow Cornelia and their son Sextus. Achillas and later Ptolemy want Cornelia as his wife. Cleopatra, who is in contention with Ptolemy to rule Egypt, disguises herself as Lydia and visits Caesar to try to form an alliance. At […]
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