Laci Boldemann’s Svart Är Vitt Sa Kejsarn (Black Is White, Said the Emperor): A Family-Friendly Fable from Sweden (1965)

HHA

Laci Boldemann, Svart Är Vitt (Black is White)

Laci Boldemann’s Svart Är Vitt Sa Kejsarn (Black Is White, Said the Emperor): A Family-Friendly Fable from Sweden (1965)

August 25, 2018Ralph P. Locke

We normally think of operas as being serious or comical. But a number of operas—some familiar, others forgotten—are neither of these. Instead, they are fantastical, dealing with such things as the fairy world and sorcerers, or with the world of dreams. One of the best such works is Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges (which might be freely translated as “The Boy Who Meets Objects and Creatures that Magically Begin to Speak and Dance”), which has recently been blessed by two astounding new recordings (conducted by, respectively, Stéphane Denève and Mikko Franck).At the present site I have recently reviewed a very engaging Czech opera by Otakar Ostrčil, based on a quasi-folktale by Tolstoy, in which the Devil seeks to seduce three brothers into serving his own destructive ends.

HHA

A Scene from a 1935 Production of Honzovo království, with Zdeněk Otava, Vladimír Tomš, Bronislav Chorovič.

The Devil, Greed, War, and Simple Goodness: Ostrčil’s Jack’s Kingdom (1934)

August 25, 2018Ralph P. Locke

Here is a little-known opera that, like an opera by the Swedish composer Laci Boldemann that I have reviewed here, and like Ravel’s amazing L’enfant et les sortilèges, utterly bypasses the usual categories of comic and grand/tragic by cultivating instead the rich realm of fantasy and folk tale.

Theater

Matt de Rogatis (standing) and Austin Pendleton (seated) in a scene from "Wars of the Roses: Henry VI & Richard III" now playing at the 124 Bank Street Theater through August 19th. Photo Chris Loupos.

The Wars of the Roses (Shakespeare’s, Henry VI, Part 3 and Richard III), directed by Austin Pendleton, starring Matt de Rogatis, at the 124 Bank Street Theater—Closing August 19th

August 17, 2018Michael Miller

The violent reign of Richard III was a popular subject from the time of Henry VIII on, according to the several chronicles and plays that preceded Shakespeare's The Tragedy of King Richard III (ca. 1592), and his own play was an immediate success with the public, as the five quarto editions published before his death attest, and has continued to be a favorite until the present day—not least because of the rich meat it provided for star actors, from Richard Burbage on. Popularity creates expectations. Richard's opening monologue is one of the purple passages that sticks in the mind of even the most casual Shakespearean, and Shakespeare gives some hint of the story's rootedness in the minds of his audience by meticulously chronicling all ten of Richard's most heinous murders, recapping them in Act V in the successive entrances of their ghosts. Even though some of Shakespeare's predecessor felt no compunction to be so thorough, he felt the need to satisfy his audience's appetite for guilt and gore with each and every one of them, and that may well have been one of the keys to the play's success.

Opera

A Scene from Janáček's Cunning Little Vixen at Glimmerglass. Photo Karli Cadel.

Glimmerglass 2018: Sense and Centennials in the Field of Dreams.

August 14, 2018Seth Lachterman

In the heat and humidity of July, which was unmitigated in tranquil Otsego county, the Glimmerglass Festival proved, yet again, that opera and musical theatre can coexist and beat the Arts-in-the-Trashcan odds in today’s society. So much of Glimmerglass’s success must be conceded to Francesca Zambello’s untiring, hands-on management and her supreme skill in selection, execution and coordination. The topic du jour in beds and breakfasts throughout Cooperstown this year is classical opera’s fate in the coming years. Most opera houses in the U.S. are in dire straits: talk of the Fall of Opera is bruited about the Metropolitan Opera in the wake of administrative cataclysms and scandals; small, independent opera houses are clinging on with white nails suffering from dwindling endowments and audiences.