Verdi's opera Luisa Miller remains a relative rarity on the operatic stage, and Midsummer Opera's performances of the work at St John's Church Waterloo on 23 & 25 March 2018 provide a welcome chance to experience the piece. David Roblou conducts a semi-staging with Stephen Holloway, John Upperton, Sian Woodling, Cheyney Kent, Andrew Major, and Emma Dogliani.
Luisa Miller was Verdi's 15th opera and is generally regarded as the first of his middle period operas, an important stepping stone which would lead to Rigoletto, Il trovatore and La traviata. Prior to writing Luisa Miller for Naples, Verdi had spent a lot of time in Paris (his opera Jerusalem premiered there in 1847), and delays over agreements for the opera with Naples meant that Verdi had a longer time frame than usual for planning the piece and this results in greater influence from French opera in the work. Julian Budden comments that "the sensitive scoring, the flexibility of the musical forms, the growing importance of the role which Verdi assigned to the orchestra ... permits him to write two lengthy dialogue recitatives".
The libretto is based on the Friedrich Schiller play,Kabale und Liebe though the librettist Salvadore Cammarano transformed both the time period and the setting so that Schiller's aristocratic intrigues are moved to a Tyrolean village and the result is an exploration of bourgeois drama.
Full details from the Midsummer Opera website.
Tuesday 20 March 2018
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Popular Posts this month
-
Septura I first became aware of the brass septet, Septura , when noting their 2017/18 concert series Kleptomania at St John's Smith...
-
Bach: Brandenburg Concertos - title page Six Concerts avec plusieurs instruments: Bach, Vivaldi, Telemann; London Handel Players, director ...
-
The Afghan Youth Orchestra On Thursday 7 March 2024, the Afghan Youth Orchestra makes its debut at the Southbank Centre at the start of its ...
-
Ben Goldscheider Jörg Widmann, Beethoven, Schumann, Huw Watkins, York Bowen; Ben Goldscheider, Richard Uttley; Wigmore Hall Reviewed 17 Marc...
-
Retrospect Opera's recording of Stanford's Shamus O'Brien in rehearsal Charles Villiers Stanford’s opera Shamus O'Brien pre...
-
Stravinsky: The Rake's Progess - Act Three, scene one: the graveyard Frederick Jones, Jerome Knox - English Touring Opera (Photo: © Ric...
-
Henry Brewster (HB) in 1897 Beethoven: Meeresstille und glückliche Fahrt , Smyth: The Prison , Brahms: Nänie : Rebecca Bottone, Alex Otterbu...
-
Listening to the sublime closing duet of Monteverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea it is perhaps difficult for us to accept that this music ...
-
Norwich Cathedral Organ (Photo: Bill Smith/Norwich Cathedral) From an epic concert featuring three Cathedral Choirs to the ‘Battle of the Or...
-
Gimnazija Kranj Symphony Orchestra I get all sorts of mail, people sending my information on concerts and recordings. Everything gets gl...
No comments:
Post a Comment