Reviews
THE LAST MAN WHO KNEW EVERYTHING?
A review of Dutch National Opera’s innovative new offering
Reviews
Reviews
A very necessary ambiguity
Arabella was born in ambiguity, in very many senses. It was conceived in an uneasy collaboration between Richard Strauss and his longtime librettist, the Austrian poet and philosopher Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Unhappy with the panning of their previous opera (Die ägyptische Helena) by the press because of the heavy
Reviews
A Concert with Murray Perahia in Madrid
I have attended so many classical music concerts, from the Boston Symphony Orchestra to the Wiener Philharmoniker. But every time I step into a concert hall and listen to the musicians play the eagerly awaited first note, I am moved. I feel like I had forgotten what it is like
Reviews
Like the world…
There are some concerts that take listeners through more than just their own lives, to the universality of all lives lived. Andris Nelsons and the Gewandhaus Orchestra’s extremely intense performance of Mahler’s 3rd Symphony had precisely this effect, one which was fully in consonance with its composer’s
Reviews
From the sublime to the merely complex
Andris Nelsons and the Gewandhaus Orchestra’s concert of Wagner (Overture to Tannhauser and Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan and Isolde) and Bruckner (3rd Symphony) at the Gewandhaus, Leipzig, provided as much food for thought as it did of emotion. The emotional intensity of their performance of the Wagner was
Reviews
When the Choir decides to get ‘Popular’: the CCM Story
The Capital City Minstrels, a 22 year old Delhi based choir, have been crooning to audiences across cities and countries for quite some time. They have had a variety of choir conductors. Without a doubt, they have emerged as a ‘versatile and dynamic choir’ as expressed in their press note.
Reviews
Tristan, with eyes wide shut.
It is unusual for an operatic production to be equally riveting at a visual and an aural level: typically one wins out, and one makes do with the lesser other. This phenomenon was taken to an extreme in the current production of Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde at the Theatre
Reviews
La Zarzuela Hermosa! (Beautiful Zarzuela)
On 30th of April, 2016, the basement hall at Instituto Cervantes New Delhi was full house. It was the second and final show of Pablo Luna Carné’s renowned Zarzuela, El Niño Judío (The Jewish Boy), brought to life by the European Union Delegation, Neemrana Music Foundation and a small
Reviews
An Insight into the Young Collegians’ idea of initiating a vehicle of musical imaginations: ARIA- Evolution of Western Music
Evolution of Music is a complicated concept to demonstrate. It attempts to focus on the genres and the personalities that resonate with the audience at a given moment in time. It sheds light on the timelessness captured in the music through the assessment of music connoisseurs, music critics, radio and
Reviews
An Invitation to the world of Hungarian Operetta
In the book, Music Divided- Bartók’s Legacy in the Cold War Culture, Danielle Fosler Lussier discusses Béla Bartók’s music, one of the contemporary musicians during Emmerich Kálmán’s time, and how it played out in different milieus. Although, he wasn’t an Operetta composer, being one of the
Reviews
Pallavi Mahidhara – A Name To Watch!
In my many years of concert going, I have yet to come across a recital that works as well as Pallavi Mahidhara’s written to Mumbai on 8th December 2015. She has everything that her huge and much exalted bio-data promises and even more hints for the future. I
Features
Opening with Opera – Giving Voice Society
Bombay has an earnest but limited audience for Western classical music – unless the best known ambassador for it comes to the city. When Zubin Mehta stages here, he has a “bass” which is wider than the familiar, oft-seen music lovers and the audience “trebles” in numbers. October 26th, 2015