Sharpenicity

  Welcome back to Sharpenicity         This week specials are something to sing about!   A Medieval Christmas concert         A  jazz opera MET in HD opera

  Eurydice — The Met Opera’s production  In Live in HD Opera —is stunning.  There is so much to say for the cast:  the amazing Erin Morley as Eurydice, Barry Banks  properly evil as  Hades, Nathan Berg  as her beloved father, Josha Hopkins as her lover/husband as Orpheus one.  Sticking by his side is his musical self, countertenor  (and breakdancer) Jakub Józef Orliński, The Three Stones —Chad Shelton, Ronnita Miller and Stacey Tappan—are an updated but essential addition to the  classic story.  Sarah Ruhl wrote the play, Mary Zimmerman the staging, Jakub Józef Orliński conducts.  Matthew Aucoin, the  31 year old composer now joins the Who’s Who list  of composers who have  written about Orphesus.  ( He  has a new book, The Impossible Art: Adventures in Opera.) About Eurydice, there is no connect with any possible divine or  historical character. She was born in stories that became poems ...

  Fairytale operas end so happily—Cinderella gets to marry the prince, Mythical figures on the other hand usually end up in a  bloody grusesome death scene.  We know from the news that while Cinderella might have gone off to be a princess, that is far from the happy ending for real life princesses!  But what to be made of the mythical females, like the princess Iphigenia who gets slain so that  Greek ships will  to have wind for their sails to Troy.  The opera  “. . . (Iphigenia)”  opens to ancient sailors thundering and roaring, drinking  and cavorting.  One Iphigenia after another is brought on stage, and led to the altar to be slaughtered like a goat for a celebratory feast to appease the female goddess Arthmis for the slaying of her favorite deer.     How wlll this ever end?   The myth spinners who go on for centuries have offered many versions in opera and paintings and movies (ione happy ending favorite is ...

  “Time is relative.” While the two year break from a live concert is a long time, the selections for The Folger Consort’s A Medieval Christmas   go back a thousand years, from late 11th century   Aquitaine and Catalonia to 14th century Italy   and 13th and 15th-century England.   The program included  exciting vocal music in Latin and early English as well as instrumental arrangements  Lesser-known earlier carols, such as “Miri it is” and “Edi beo thu hevene queene” flowed  into  later familiar English carols such as “Ah, my dear son,” “There is no rose,” and “Lullay, lullow,”  Soprano Emily Noël was exquisite in delivering vocal music selections. Multi-instrumentalists Dan Meyers on medieval winds and percussions and Mary Springfels on vielle and citole  were in top form.  Special thanks to Artistic Directors Robert Eisenstein and Christopher Kendall for this tradition by the Folger Consort. While modern music is an ind...