- My SFCV review; I thought it an absorbing and beautiful masterpiece.
- Brian at Out West Arts felt the same way about it that I did, and says it eloquently and with fewer words.
- Anthony Tommasini agrees with us in the Times.
- Steve Smith has a long and loving aside about Adriana in a blog posting otherwise occupied with New Albion Records.
- Sarah Bryan Miller, writing in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, is unimpressed. (She's wrong about the reason the singers were amplified; the opera was never so loud that they couldn't have been heard over it. It's never as loud as, say, Elektra or Salome. The singers were amplified so some electronic processing could be done, and it was Saariaho's decision to do so.)
- Anne Midgette has praise with some qualifications in the WashPost.
- Steve Robert Allen was mostly positive.
- Lawrence A. Johnson terms the libretto stiff and talky, but finds the music majestic.
- Alan Riding's 2006 Times review of the Paris premiere
- Alex Ross's New Yorker review of the Paris premiere
Lisa Hirsch's Classical Music Blog.
The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve. Lovers, to bed; 'tis almost fairy time.
Berce mollement sur ton sein sublime
Ô puissante mer, l’enfant de Dindyme!
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Saturday, August 09, 2008
Adriana Mater Roundup
A number of reviewers and bloggers have weighed in on Kaija Saariaho and Amin Maalouf's Adriana Mater:
From the Sarah Bryan Miller review:
ReplyDeleteI was only able to see the first half of "Radamisto," but that was enough. The story is wholly ridiculous, typical of Baroque opera; the score is an aria parade, also typically Baroque
Ouch!
Typical Anne Midgette: "It's good, but...."
The plot is silly but the music is utterly magnificent - one gorgeous piece after another, and a surprising number of duets and ensembles.
ReplyDeleteHi, do you know if there will be a west coast (ideally Bay Area) production of this?
ReplyDeleteNot that I know of - I have not heard a single rumor about any other US productions of Adriana.
ReplyDelete