Monthly Archives: May 2011

On the Hamilton-Toronto bus, en route to see Canadian Opera Company’s Ariadne auf Naxos by Richard Strauss, there is time to re-dip into Wilhelm Furtwangler Notebooks 1924-54 and read what this truly legendary conductor has to say about tonight’s composer. … Continue reading →

Gluck’s down-to-basics reformist opera, Orfeo ed Euridice, is a very human and sublimely musical rite that explores humanity’s most fundamental and blunt existential condition: we die. Or, more painfully for us, those we love deeply die before we do, and … Continue reading →

Alex Pangman’s new CD, titled 33, begins at speeding ticket tempo with I Found a New Baby and it sits comfortably in memories of the instrumental 1937 Teddy Wilson Orchestra recording. After all, Pangman’s band, the Alleycats, are an ace … Continue reading →

At the outset, under conductor Leonardo Vordoni’s baton, the overture to Canadian Opera Company’s current La Cenerentola seems more a reticent sigh than a twinkle of fun one expects in Rossini. What hint of playfulness there is seems outside the … Continue reading →