by Mike Telin & Daniel Hathaway
Mozart’s La finta giardiniera is an ideal teaching opera for young singers, with its wealth of approachable arias and challenging recitatives. It also boasts a plot so complicated that few have been able to sum it up in a paragraph. “I could not make this opera stranger than it already is,” director Jonathon Field said in a telephone conversation. Tenor Daniel McGrew, who sings the role of the Count, said, “It takes a long time just to get to know what it is about.”
Soprano Rebecca Achtenberg, who plays Sandrina, read four different synopses before she auditioned. “The plot is complicated and I have relished developing ways of explaining it as quickly as possible. But I think if you take out all of the side plots it is pretty simple: girl gets stabbed by her lover, girl goes off to find him, a lot of mistaken identity, a lot of love triangles, and finally, everybody ends up with the person they should. Of course, the intricacies are important to the fun, but I think the plot clears up as the characters develop throughout the opera.” [Read more…]
We know about serial relationships, but what do you call an event that celebrates the overlapping anniversaries of two performing arts organizations? On Sunday, March 15 at 3:30 pm in the Masonic Auditorium Performing Arts Center, the Suburban Symphony and Choral Arts Cleveland will mark their respective sixtieth and fortieth anniversaries — adding up to a hundred years of music-making — with a performance of Georges Bizet’s opera, Carmen.
The biennial Baldwin Wallace Art Song Festival likes to keep the buzz alive by presenting a solo recital by an international artist every other year. On Sunday evening, March 15 at 7:00 p.m., Canadian baritone Elliot Madore will bring lieder, chansons and songs by Robert Schumann, Francis Poulenc and Charles Ives to the stage of Gamble Auditorium in Berea, in collaboration with pianist Natalia Katyukova.
Cleveland, March 5, 2015 — The Cleveland International Piano Competition has released the names of twenty-nine pianists, ages 12-18, who will receive invitations to journey to Cleveland in May, 2015 to participate in the CIPC Young Artists Competition and Institute.
In his book, The Children’s Blizzard, author David Laskin chronicles the events of January 12, 1888. That morning the temperatures in the upper Midwest were unseasonably warm, so warm in fact that children walked to school without coats, hats or gloves. That afternoon one of the deadliest winter storms in U.S. history left thousands stranded as they attempted to make their way home. By the next morning, the storm had claimed more than 500 casualties, many of them school children.
When thinking of music by Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina, there are two works that immediately come to mind: the Chaconne (1962) for solo piano and the violin concerto, Offertorium (1980). This weekend, area audiences will have the opportunity to hear one of the composer’s lesser-known works.
This weekend, Les Délices will present “Cantiques Spirituels — Music for Lent,” a concert that straddles the worlds of private devotion and the public sphere. “What I think is wonderful about this program is the interesting juxtaposition of the texts with the music,” guest soprano Nola Richardson said during a recent telephone conversation. “The texts are quite somber, but the music of Couperin and Charpentier is so elaborate and beautiful.”
Celebrating your thirtieth anniversary is a big moment — especially if you’re a string quartet. Formed three decades ago in Columbus, Ohio, the Cavani Quartet is also celebrating its twenty-sixth year as Quartet-in-Residence at the Cleveland Institute of Music. What began in 1988 as a one-year residency with the support of a grant from Chamber Music America has turned into a long-term relationship. During that quarter-century, the Cavani have established themselves as one of the most successful community residencies in the country.
When you walk into their studio, home of the Cavani’s Intensive Quartet Seminar program at CIM, you immediately understand why they have been a source of inspiration to so many young musicians. It’s a fairly large space, and in spite of the fact that there are no windows, it’s bright and cheery with its colorful, poster-covered walls. The perfect environment for honing one’s chamber music skills.