Word: operas
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...maestro spelled out his grandiose ambitions: De Waart, 63, one of the world's most accomplished and sought-after conductors, announced that he wants to perform a complete cycle of Mahler's symphonies in 2011, the centenary of the composer's death, and that he plans to present an opera in concert every year, culminating in a performance of Wagner's The Ring of the Nibelungs, the most challenging work in the Western musical canon. But what De Waart mainly wants is a new concert hall...
...legendary American acoustician Russell Johnson, which is regarded by expert listeners as one of the best halls anywhere. In Kuala Lumpur, oil money built a stunning new hall at the base of the Petronas Towers for the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra, which celebrates its sixth birthday in August. Futuristic opera houses are going up in Beijing and Guangzhou, challenging Shanghai's Grand Theater. In February, Jakarta opened a 1,500-seat mixed-use hall as a home for Indonesia's semiprofessional Nusantara Symphony Orchestra; Bangkok, too, is building a classical-music venue, an opera house on the sixth floor...
...same holds true for opera: on any given night, whether at a leading international house or a provincial company, the languishing soprano heroine or the menacing bass villain is now likely to come from East Asia?particularly Korea. The lyric soprano Hei-Kyung Hong and the coloratura soprano Sumi Jo currently dominate their roles to a degree unrivaled by any Western singers...
...third round of talks on North Korea's nuclear program ended inconclusively in Beijing on Saturday, this diplomatic soap opera was beginning to look like a tired re-run. The latest episode was not without a dramatic plot twist: chief U.S. negotiator James Kelly proposed a plan under which North Korea would dismantle its nuclear weapons in phases in return for massive aid and a provisional guarantee that the U.S. would not attack. But the denouement seemed utterly predictable: the North was in no hurry to bite, vowing to study the proposal in due time, and both sides came away...
Died. Nicolai Ghiaurov, 74, Bulgarian bass whose warm, rich voice and striking stage presence carried him through almost a half-century of opera stardom; of heart failure; in Modena, Italy. He debuted at New York City's Metropolitan Opera in 1965 as Mephistopheles in Gounod's Faust and went on to such signature roles as King Philip in Verdi's Don Carlo and the title role in Moussorgsky's Boris Godounov...