Word: operas
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...much fun. We save up our enthusiasm during the off years, developing a hungry curiosity not just for the Games but also for the place. The first Olympics of the millennium will be held in Sydney, Australia, a Pacific Rim capital city. Its spectacular harbor and opera house are among the world's most dramatic settings, superbly fit for what will unfold next week. The harbor is also the site of a signature Australian event, the triathlon, a lung-burning triad of swimming, cycling and running that will be making its Olympic debut. That Australia's famous sharks...
...have a great advantage over any recent host city of the Games," insists festival director Leo Schofield, "and that is just that building on Bennelong Point." Indeed, whatever quibbles you might have with the Opera House's acoustics or the dinginess of its orchestral pit, Utzon's poetic sails provide a charged and sacred space for musicians. As the Australian Chamber Orchestra's artistic director and lead violinist Richard Tognetti points out, "There's a certain gladiatorial aspect...
...plugged through a sound system or he's sitting down in a string quartet, Slava has a fantastic ability to absorb the spirit of a work, and to transport the audience into a sound world," says Australian composer Nigel Westlake, whose new guitar concerto Grigoryan will premiere at the Opera House, "and that's a rare and exciting gift...
...Francisco Opera specializes in movie-into-opera custom conversion jobs designed to tantalize non-operagoers who don't know Rigoletto from rigatoni. Two years ago, it was A Streetcar Named Desire, with superstar soprano Renee Fleming as Blanche Dubois; now it's Dead Man Walking, with superstar mezzo Susan Graham as Sister Helen Prejean, the spiritual adviser who brings salvation to a death-row inmate, the role for which Susan Sarandon won an Academy Award. The score is by Jake Heggie, a gifted purveyor of bittersweet art songs, and the libretto is by playwright-opera buff Terrence McNally (The Lisbon...
...centenary of the Great American Composer by leading the San Francisco Symphony in Aaron Copland's electrifying Symphony No. 3 (Sept. 27-28). Cecilia Bartoli and Bryn Terfel, the hottest tickets of the post-Pavarotti era, join forces for a gala concert at New York City's Metropolitan Opera House (Oct. 29). Ace countertenor David Daniels, opera's freshest star, makes his triumphant return to the New York City Opera in a new production of Handel's Rinaldo (Oct. 31). And Chanticleer, the Grammy-winning 12-man a cappella vocal ensemble, backs up Magnificat (Teldec), its elegant...