The story is heavy on melodrama. After an appealing choral scene for the contented Gypsies, an old man (here the stentorian bass Kevin Thompson) tells a somber tale of a woman he once loved who ran off with a man from another camp. Aleko (the sturdy bass Stefan Szkafarowsky), who is married to the winsome young Zemfira (the dark-toned soprano Inna Dukach), says he would never put up with such a betrayal. But Zemfira has fallen for a dashing young lover (the bright tenor Jason Karn) and flaunts her affair in Aleko’s face. After an anguished aria of despair, a highlight of the score, Aleko kills the young lovers and is banished from the camp.
If I need to tell you who wrote that, you haven't been paying attention.
10 comments:
Rachmaninoff wrote an opera?
Oh, you mean who wrote the review. I don't think I've allowed my eyes on his prose in many years.
Rachmaninoff wrote three!
I had to look it up to find out who wrote the opera. A summary on Wikipedia doesn't appear to be too far off from the description here, so what am I missing?
A tic in the writing.
The adjective voice-range singer-name
Aren't all basses stentorian?
I used to read the old Time magazine. You've got to do better than this to impress me with writing tics.
Good thing I'm not trying to impress you, then!
If you're the chief music critic of the NY Times, you're reviewing an opera, and that's the best you can do in terms of discussing the singing in that opera, you're doing your readers a disservice.
Unusually, not a single singer mentioned had a dusky tone.
Oh, sheesh, yes. Another of his mannerisms.
Only if you're Anthony Tommasini.
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