HELLO! I'M HAPPY TO ANNOUNCE THAT WE JUST HIT 100 VIEWS! THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR SUPPORT!
Saturday, April 13, 2013
"Composer of the Month"
Hi all! Here's my new 'composer of the month' idea. I know, the composers are randomly selected (birthdays, death dates, etc. aren't reasons for why I picked the composer)--I just pick according to what I listen to A LOT these days...so...here I go...
COMPOSER OF THE MONTH:
ANTONIO SALIERI
No, he didn't kill Mozart.*
Salieri was an Italian classical composer,
conductor and teacher born in Legnago, south of Verona, in
the Republic of Venice, but who spent his adult life and career as a
faithful subject of the Habsburg monarchy.
Appointed the director of the Italian opera by the Habsburg
court, a post he held from 1774 to 1792, Salieri dominated Italian language
opera in Vienna. During his career he also spent time writing works for
opera houses in Venice, Rome, and Paris. His dramatic works were widely
performed throughout Europe during his lifetime. As the Austrian
imperial Kapellmeister from 1788 to 1824, he was responsible for
music at the court chapel and attached school. Even as his works dropped from
performance, and he wrote no new operas after 1804, he still remained one of
the most important and sought-after teachers of his generation, and his
influence was felt in every aspect of Vienna's musical life. Franz
Schubert, Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Liszt were among
the most famous of his pupils.
The reason I picked Salieri was because of his opera Axur,
re d'Ormus. It's a great opera that's REALLY hard to find...
Aspasia has a great aria in Act IV: Son queste le speranze http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvsX8NG-VRY
The Finale to the opera is great as well. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ws1yRIiFfi0
*Salieri is known as being the composer who killed Mozart.
THIS ISNT TRUE.
Thursday, April 11, 2013
I HATE when news media says stupid things about opera/music
I absolutely HATE it when the news media thinks it's okay to talk
bad about opera performances/singers. Here's an article from a few days ago.
I understand that there might be some problems, but that doesn't mean that you can be all rude about it! They make it sound like singing and putting on an opera production is easy!
I mean really "If that is no way to be a singer, it is also no way to direct an opera."--How rude is that? "the Met’s expensive, empty “Ring,” which values technical achievement over ideas and passion."--Don't they know that the met was trying to put Wagner's grand-scale ideas into play by making this plank machine? "Ideas and passion"--The machine was displaying Wagner's IDEAS. Also, how can they say that the Met wasn't focusing on passion? Opera is not a simple task. They clearly don't understand that the Met devoted HOURS of rehearsals into the MUSIC and its PASSION. Heres another RUDE article-http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/08/met-opera-ring-cycle-stage-problems-interrupt-performance-das-rheingold_n_3039369.html
"It's not just the golden ring that carries a curse. The Metropolitan Opera's production of Wagner's epic seems to as well."--The production carries a curse? Let's see THEM make a production like that! "None of this would matter quite so much, except that Lepage's production is all about spectacle, sadly at the expense of much attention to dramatic interactions among the characters, let alone any overarching interpretive concept."--They don't seem to understand that the WHOLE REASON FOR THE STAGING WAS TO EXPRESS WAGNER'S ORIGINAL IDEAS AND DRAMATIC INTENTIONS.
I understand that they're critics but still....So rude...
Feel free to post any comments/opinions...I need some of those...
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Aaaa-aaaaaaaa EEEEKKKKKK!!
Here's a REALLY funny (and surprisingly in-tune) version of Der Hölle Rache (Queen of the Night from The Magic FLute, ACt II) with a goat.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjzkuTiHM-I
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