It’s amazing how Leon Botstein and Bard College’s SummerScape series keep coming up with “overlooked masterpieces” from the operatic repertoire.  At least that’s what the scholarly support materials tell us they are. The reality of what’s heard and seen on stage is often another matter. This year’s entry is “Die Liebe der Danae.” Richard Strauss’ second to last opera, it was completed in 1940 but only...

LIAISONS: Off to a Good Start Saturday April 2 University of Maryland Anthony de Mare kicked off his American tour of LIAISONS: Re-imagining Sondheim from the Piano at the University of Maryland’s Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center with fine performances of 14 new works. LIAISONS will eventually include short piano pieces written by 36 stylistically diverse contemporary composers, each work based on a Steven Sondheim...

Clint Borzoni began studying music at age seven and wrote his first composition at age eleven. Now 29 years old, he’s composed more than 40 pieces, including a piano concerto, percussion quartet, a couple of sting quartets and chamber orchestra works and loads of songs. A New York City resident, he received his bachelors and masters degrees at CUNY.  His musical theater work “My Life as a Bald Soprano”...

Eugenics — the science of improving a human population by controlled breeding to increase desirable characteristics — is a central theme in “Cold Spring,” which plays Friday and Saturday nights (12/3-4/10) in the EMPAC theater in Troy. Creator Sean Griffin chose the title as a reference to the studies in human potential conducted in Cold Spring Harbor, Suffolk County, during the early part of the...

As one of the world’s leading opera directors Francesca Zambello’s career has taken her around the globe, jetting to such illustrious houses as La Scala, Covenant Garden and the Metropolitan Opera.  But as the new artistic director of Glimmerglass Opera, she’s been spending much of the fall driving herself around the Northeast, talking up the company with potential patrons and friends, from the Finger Lakes in New York...

“The Golden Gate” is the latest opera from San Francisco native and Manhattan resident Conrad Cummings. It’s based on the novel by Vikram Seth and was most recently given a staged workshop at Lincoln Center’s Rose Studio. This here new website presents excerpts, synopsis and more. share: Bookmark on Delicious Digg this post Recommend on Facebook Buzz it up Tip on Hyves Share via MySpace Share on Orkut...

Last month composer SCOTT PENDER attended a two-week summer music intensive known as the John Duffy Composers Institute, part of the Virginia Arts Festival. But it may as well be called Opera Camp. According to Pender, the sessions are for composers of opera and musical theatre to bring alive their works and get feedback from the collaborating artists and senior composers.  The musical staff consisted of founder John Duffy...

Talk about bringing music to the people! Composer/performer Byron Au Yong is putting opera in bottles (no deposit required). At least that’s the impression given by the subtitle to a 2008 piece. But the work’s name – “Kidnapping Water: Bottle Operas” – is actually deceptive. Rather than mass-produced take-home music, the piece is more about making audiences go the distance. Like a musical Christo and Jeanne-Claude,...

Big classical music institutions (i.e. symphonies and opera companies) have long been on the Stephen Sondheim bandwagon and the occasion of his 80th birthday year (which is today–3/22/10) has been a great excuse for them to further horn in on the musical theatre domain, where the composer has excelled. But one classical pianist, Anthony de Mare, has come up with a fresh approach to celebrating Sondheim.  About five years...

Stephen Sondheim musicals keep getting revived, often in chamber versions, and at 79, he’s still writing songs as well as a two-volume treatise on theater and lyrics. “Sondheim Makes His Entrance Again, Intimately” by Patrick Healy (New York Times, January 3, 2010) share: Bookmark on Delicious Digg this post Recommend on Facebook Buzz it up Tip on Hyves Share via MySpace Share on Orkut share via Reddit Share with...