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2024-03-28
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2023-11-09 08:50:00
Celebrating 17th-century Venice as a place of tolerance for gay artists - Infinite Refrain: Music of Love's Refuge
Infinite Refrain: Music of Love's Refuge: Monteverdi, Cavalli, Boretti, Melani, Castrovillari; Randall Scotting, Jorge Navarro Colorado, Academy of Ancient Music, Laurence Cummings; Signum ClassicsReviewed 3 November 2023A wonderful album that celebrates Venice as a place of tolerance for gay artists in the 17th century, with music by Monteverdi and Cavalli, alongside modern-day premieres by the little-known composers Boretti, Melani, and Castrovillari During the 17th and 18th centuries, Venice had a reputation, particularly during the Carnival, where people could wander around masked and all sorts of activities could take place. Exciting things that would not be possible elsewhere. Tourists flocked, and entertainment for them stretched from the lucrative trade of prostitutes right through to the opera. It was fun for young heterosexual men, of course, women were far more available, but it was even bigger a draw for gay men.Thanks to disputes between the Venetian authorities and the church, there was […]
2023-04-19 07:00:00
2022-06-14 09:51:00
Carmen – Kezia BienekDon José – Oliver Johnston Escamillo – Thomas Mole Micaëla – Alison Langer Frasquita – Natasha Agarwal Mercédès – Ellie Edmonds Zuniga – Jacob Phillips Moralès – Jevan McAuley Le Dancaïre – Themba Mvula Le Remendado – Mike Bradley Cecilia Stinton (director) takis (set designs) Johanne Jensen (lighting) Isabel Baquero (choreography) Children’s Chorus from Cardinal Vaughan School Opera Holland Park Chorus (chorus director: Richard Harker) City of London Sinfonia Lee Reynolds (conductor)Image: Ali Wright Carmen was the last opera I saw before the end of the world. Not necessarily what I would have chosen; for many of my friends it was Fidelio, whose absence from my truncated Beethoven Year I regretted deeply. But then none of us chose pandemic, lockdown, death, misery, and the rest. It was good, though, to have opportunity to exorcise another pandemic ghost, albeit in different guise. Cecilia Stinton’s new Holland Park production has […]
2022-06-03 09:39:35
An engaging new Carmen from Opera Holland Park that adjusts tradition rather than reinventing it, returning the work to its Opera Comique roots
Bizet: Carmen - Oliver Johnston, Kezia Bienek - Opera Holland Park, 2022 (Photo Ali Wright) Bizet: Carmen; Kezia Bienek, Oliver Johnston, Alison Langer, Thomas Mole, director: Cecilia Stinton, conductor: Lee Reynolds; Opera Holland ParkReviewed 2 June 2022 (★★★★½) A production that went back to Carmen's Opera Comique roots and successfully combined tradition and innovation, with some strong performances all round For all its rattling good tunes and iconic plot, Bizet's Carmen is an opera that is difficult to get right on the stage. For all the Spanish setting, this was a work created by four Frenchmen, and despite Carmen's robustly independent outlook, she is a heroine created as an idea in response to the male gaze. As the programme book for Opera Holland Park's new production of the opera points out, in the work Carmen makes few personal statements, she reveals little of herself and the men in the opera paint […]
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