One Singer, One Act – Hold the Erwartung
David Robertson will lead the New York Philharmonic in Shostakovich‘s Symphony No. 1, Rachmaninoff‘s The Isle of the Dead, and Schoenberg‘s Erwartung, with the commodious soprano Deborah Voigt as soloist, on Thursday, June 9, 2011, at 7:30 p.m., Friday, June 10, at 8:00 p.m., and Saturday, June 11, at 8:00 p.m. You can win a pair of tickets for the June 10 performance; Just name all the one singer, one act operas you can think of. The person, or maybe persons, with the most wins the tickets. You are on the honor system not to Google.
Egon und Emilie (Ernst Toch)
La Voix Humaine (Poulenc)
Perséphone (Stravinsky)
Flower and Hawk (Carlisle Floyd)
Eight Songs for a Mad King (Peter Maxwell Davies)
The Italian Lesson (Lee Hoiby)
The Stronger (Hugo Weisgall)
Well, and how many American sopranos sing Erwartung one month and Annie Get Your Gun the next? At least Ms. Voigt won’t get lost in Frank Butler’s arms!
And on an American opera and music theater note, the new Washington National Opera of the Kennedy Center is said to be considering the Glimmerglass Festival model of staging one American musical theater piece each year, staged with full orchestra and chorus and without amplification.
Apparently the new de facto General Director, Michael Kaiser, is trying to look progressive (even promising to stage a good recent European avant-garde opera, although perhaps in a smaller Center theater) while still not committing the company to staging one American opera every season, as the company earlier promised Congress when it was granted its name change.
One of the great things about having a blog is you don’t have to make sense. I suspect all of the above apply to the talented yet larger than life Miss Voigt.
“commodious soprano” – spacious soprano? Comfy soprano? Ample soprano? Or, googling…. handy soprano?
Maybe I’m just slow….. help?