November 8, 2002

The MetManiac site has shut down. Its owner says that he received a letter from the Metropolitan Opera threatening legal action unless he ceased and desisted operating the site. The site had included information about Met radio broadcasts and about casting and repertory for upcoming seasons.

November 7, 2002

William Christie and Les Arts Florissants will perform Rameau's Les Boréades on dates in June 2003 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

September 28, 2002

In Massachusetts, Longwood Opera will present The Magic Flute fully costumed, staged and performed in English, at the following places:

November 1 & 2 at 8pm
November 3 at 2:30pm
Christ Episcopal Church, 1132 Highland Avenue, Needham MA

November 8 at 8pm
The Baker School, 205 Beverly Road, Chestnut Hill MA

November 9 at 8pm
First Baptist Church, 5 Magazine Street, Cambridge MA

and November 10 at 2:30pm
Grace Church, 385 Essex Street, Salem MA

September 27, 2002

The Fairmont Copley Plaza is now the Boston Symphony Orchestra's "official hotel," reports the Boston Herald of today. "All BSO and Boston Pops galas and receptions will be there. The hotel will also house guest conductors and musicians."

September 11, 2002

A man who was paid by singers to applaud their performances at Rome's main opera house has been murdered, rekindling fears that a homosexual serial killer is targeting cultured Italians, reports telegraph.co.uk.

July 28, 2002

The Bach Collegium Japan will perform Bach's St. Matthew Passion on Saturday April 12, 2003 (the eve of Palm Sunday), at 7:30 p.m. at the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Jesuit Urban Center, Boston, Massachusetts, as one of the Boston Early Music Festival Concerts for 2002-2003. The announced soloists are Gerd Turk, Evangelist; Peter Kooij, Christus; Robin Blaze, counter-tenor; Jochen Kupfer, bass; and Yukari Nonoshita, soprano.

July 27, 2002

Craig Smith will conduct the Orchestra of Emmanuel Music, the Spectrum Singers, and soloists Sarah Pelletier, Frederich Urrey, William Sharp, James Maddalena, and Sanford Sylvan in a concert performance of Schubert's opera Alfonso und Estrella, D. 732, on Saturday, February 1, 2003, at 7:30 p.m., at Emmanuel Church, 15 Newbury Street, Boston, Massachusetts.

May 7, 2002

elcultural.es reports, in Spanish, that the composer Xavier Montsalvatge has died in Barcelona at the age of ninety.

May 7, 2002

The single “Someone Like You,” a duet between Russell Watson and Faye Tozer, was released in the United Kingdom on May 6, 2002. Faye sings in English, and Russell sings in both Italian and English. Both have attractive, fresh, but quite different voices, that blend well together. The orchestration works very well with the voices. It is fun to listen to the song, which recalls Italian pop hits of the sixties and seventies. One might enjoy having the song in the background during a romantic meeting, but it would be even better listening if one were alone, late at night, sipping an herbal tea or a drink in a candlelit room, thinking wistfully of someone special.

Also included on the compact disc is a haunting rendition of “You Are So Beautiful” sung by Russell Watson.

I wish both singers well in their careers, and I hope that both will continue to experiment with different kinds of songs.

April 26, 2002

Boston Baroque will perform Handel's oratorio Theodora at Jordan Hall in Boston on May 2 and 3, 2003, at 8 p.m. The announced soloists are Sharon Baker, Mary Phillips, David Walker, and Michael Dean.

April 21, 2002

My review of Handel & Haydn Society Ariodante

March 15, 2002

"The purpose of adapting a work of art is to allow for its universal themes to emerge in a context readily identifiable and relevant for audiences. In transporting the action of George Bizet’s opera Carmen from 19th-century Seville to the tumultuous backdrop of the free trade protests in Quebec and post-September 11 Wall Street, Lowell House Opera’s (LHO) new adaptation fails to shed light on the complex, weighty issues of free trade and globalization, while confusing and compromising the dramatic appeal of the opera itself," wrote Michelle Chun in a review in the Harvard Crimson of March 15.

February 7, 2002

Today's Boston Globe reports that Boston's Handel and Haydn Society will include in its 2002-2003 season the "first Boston performances of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony on original instruments." Grant Llewellyn will conduct the performances at Symphony Hall on April 11 and 13, 2003.

February 5, 2002

Prism Opera has announced that it will put on performances, fully staged with orchestra, of two one-act operas--Riders to the Sea by Ralph Vaughan Williams and Savitri by Gustav Holst--at Pine Manor College, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, on Friday February 22, 2002, at 8:00 p.m. Both operas will be in English. Pamela Dellal will sing Maurya in Riders to the Sea.