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The Little Festival That Could: Verdi’s Falstaff at The Grange Festival
The Grange Festival has dramatically risen from operatic ashes after the previous management team marched off in 2016 with the chairs, lighting, database and many of the all-important sponsors. The backers of the glorious but dilapidated venue in Hampshire quickly
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Equal Sides of the Musical Triangle
David Ludwig about IC2019
When we last spoke with David Ludwig, he was about to head off for Hong Kong to participate in the 2019 Intimacy of Creativity – The Bright Sheng Partnership: Composers Meet Performers in Hong Kong (IC) festival held by the
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A Salome to flummox the Salzburg glitterati
This summer’s Salzburg Festival chatter was dominated by the enthusiastic reviews of the new production of Richard Strauss’ Salome and its new star soprano Asmik Grigorian.
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Beautiful Song Beautifully Sung
An Interview with Kenneth E. Querns Langley
Three years ago, bel canto scholar and tenor Kenneth Querns Langley started working on the idea of a Bel Canto Festival and it came to fruition last year. This year will be the second Festival, built around the participation of
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The Festival of the Noise that Thinks
An Interview with Ingmar Lazar
Starting in 2016, the ‘Festival du Bruit qui Pense’, founded by pianist Ingmar Lazar, started on its unique journey. Mr. Lazar’s vision rested on the communication between the arts. Over the three days of his upcoming festival (March 23-24-25), there
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Salzburg: Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida by Shirin Neshat
The Salzburg music festival’s new director Markus Hinterhaeuser boldly outlined the motto of this year’s program as ‘power’: “strategies of power, its disgraces and horrors, but also with the ability to forgive.” With this bold declaration Hinterhaeuser possibly tried to
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Feather light and forgettable
Mozart’s Don Giovanni at the Aix-en-Provence Festival 2017
There was little to commend the new production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni at the Aix-en-Provence Festival 2017. The stage set lacked any recognizable theme, and the intermittently raised and dropped metallic curtains offered no discernible purpose. Ditto on the costumes
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Pesaro 2016 – Living for and living off Rossini
It’s hard to justify the arduous trip to Pesaro. The unremarkable town on Italy’s Adriatic coast has poor train connections, it’s a dull two hour car ride from Bologna, and the nearest airport is Ancona Falconara, a run-down and inefficient
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