Word: fidelio
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...face of it, conductor Daniel Hathaway seemed to have limited his ambition to a formal concert performance without dialogue. Actually he failed to resist the temptation of doing Fidelio as a stage production as well...
...music wonk predicted that "this was the year they would do Gotterdammerung on a card table." He wasn't far off. Saturday night the Music Club mounted what was billed as a concert performance of Beethoven's only opera, Fidelio...
From the beginning this project suffered from delusions of grandeur. Fidelio is traditionally a work of which even professionals are terrified. Beethoven was not one to let the physical limitations of the human voice restrict his compositional imagination, and Fidelio contains some of the most fiendishly difficult vocal and instrumental part-writing in the whole operatic literature...
BEETHOVEN: FIDELIO (2 LPs; Nonesuch). A less grandiose effort at another demanding opera is on the whole more satisfying. Beethoven's only opera draws much of its beauty from a succession of duets, trios and quartets; and all hands, under the direction of Carl Bamberger with Hamburg's Norddeutscher Rundfunk Orchestra, are nimble, experienced ensemble singers. As Leonore, Gladys Kuchta reaches everything but the heights of Abscheulicher!; Julius Patzak, who had been singing for 35 years when this record was made, still sounds fresh and sturdy as Florestan; the best performance on the record is Melita Muszely...
...contingent was able to reach, the remaining 13 candidates were put through a musical obstacle course: they had to conduct the first movement of Berlioz' Symphonic Fantastique, Debussy's First Rhapsody for clarinet and piano, a recitative and aria from Beethoven's Fidelio, and a surprise modern piece-Andre Previn's Overture to a Comedy-for which they were given only 30 minutes to prepare. Said Concertmaster Gabriel Banat: "It was a harrowing experience for them and a merry-go-round...