tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post6315844317515961818..comments2024-03-27T23:06:03.736-05:00Comments on The Music Salon: Monteverdi and the OperaBryan Townsendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09482696991279345516noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-15927693188201265212017-04-29T22:41:34.708-05:002017-04-29T22:41:34.708-05:00David, that is wonderful to hear about! A friend o...David, that is wonderful to hear about! A friend of mine used to play in the COC orchestra and I have heard of the Opera Atelier, but never heard a performance. Have to look on YouTube. Tafelmusik is also an outstanding Toronto early music ensemble and I have several of their CDs.Bryan Townsendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09482696991279345516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-8001376737420122552017-04-29T20:13:49.207-05:002017-04-29T20:13:49.207-05:00Toronto, the self-proclaimed metropolitan centre o...Toronto, the self-proclaimed metropolitan centre of Canada, is home to a number of opera companies. One of them, Opera Atelier, specializes in baroque operas and mounts two presentations a year. The spring offering this year was Charpentier's Medee. I had the good fortune to attend a performance last week, sitting in "the gods" for only $39! I mention this because the production (with a complement of 80 singers, dancers and musicians) will perform in the Versailles palace opera theatre later this year as part of events in France celebrating Canada's 150th anniversary of Confederation (nationhood). The Opera Atelier production proved that there is still life in this masterpiece 320 years after its premiere in 1693!Davidnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-59533165992638753402017-04-23T16:05:13.047-05:002017-04-23T16:05:13.047-05:00You are very, very lucky indeed! Sounds like a wea...You are very, very lucky indeed! Sounds like a wealth of music. I rather avoided opera for most of my life, unless they were paying me to play in the orchestra, of course! But I also never lived in a place where really outstanding opera was commonly performed.Bryan Townsendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09482696991279345516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-90700361104762113782017-04-23T12:22:02.705-05:002017-04-23T12:22:02.705-05:00I have the very excellent luck of living near New ...I have the very excellent luck of living near New Haven, where Yale University has a world-class graduate School of Music (which includes a lot of baroque performances), plus an "undergraduate" (much-supported by faculty and the YSM) Yale Baroque Opera Project, plus a Divinity School-sponsored Institute of Sacred Music --so contrary to the midwestern cities and probably much of Canada, I frequently hear live baroque music, including opera. The Baroque Opera Project focuses on 17th century opera, including of course Monteverdi but also Cavalli. Next week we'll hear Cavalli's "La Didone."<br /><br />http://ybop.yale.edu/<br /><br />It was after hearing my first Monteverdi opera ("il retorno d'Ulyse in patria") that I bought a nice box set of "complete" Monteverdi operas, which totals to 3 --and according to the notes in that Brilliant Classics box set, 1 of the 3, "L'Incoronozione di Poppaea" in its surviving forms seems to be an amalgamation from several operas by several composers, with virtually nothing indisputably traceable to Monteverdi himself, who may or may not have had a hand in the opera as it survives today. "Il ritorno d'Ulisse" and "Orpheo" at least have clear attribution to Monteverdi, according to those notes. And zero mention of the fragments of 7 other operas you mentioned, which would definitely be an interesting collection to hear recorded.<br /><br />Just yesterday I saw an HD live simulcast of the Met Opera's production of Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin". Perhaps irrelevant to your article today except to note the obvious: the opera form of musical drama, begun in Italy in the early 17th century, certainly caught the fancy of audiences and composers ever since!Will Wilkinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01997868915978439364noreply@blogger.com