George Frideric Handel, Partenope (1730)

I found this production on youtube. And there are A LOT of problems with the recording: the visuals are extremely murky, for one; it's hard to really tell what's going on, and there are so many close-ups of faces that it's hard to get an idea for where this is all taking place. Furthermore, the subtitles are wonky as hell; frequently they just appear and disappear in the blink of an eye or a few second at most, so you really have to be looking closely or have the pause button at the ready. Finally, for reasons surpassing understanding, whoever created the video decided to awkwardly edit out applause breaks--although that last one is actually less irksome than the others, which make it difficult or impossible to parse the plot here in anything but the broadest of strokes. After watching it, I belatedly realized that this very performance is available on disc, which would no doubt fix a lot of these problems (though the close-ups would still be an issue).

Read more »

Jean-Philippe Rameau, Platée (1745)

Boy, where would we be without baroque opera, I ask you? I mean, considering where we are now, it chills the blood to imagine how much worse it could be.

Read more »

Jaakko Kuusisto, Ice (2019)

And now for something completely different.  This is based on a best-selling Finnish novel (an opera based on Anna Kavan's Ice would be extremely different). It's possibly the best-selling Finnish novel, if I understand aright. It's the first Finnish-language opera I've seen (whoo!), and also the most recently-composed--the Finnish National Opera and Ballet premier is on Operavision--until September 4 only! See it while you can!

Read more »

Jean-Philippe Rameau, Zoroastre (1749, rev. 1756)

Boy, this one is...different. I don't quite understand all the different categorizations that are apparently made regarding these baroque operas; wikipedia calls this and Castor et Pollux "tragédies en musiques," whereas Les Paladins is apparently a "comédie lyrique" and Les indes galantes is an "opéra-ballet." And yet, those latter two basically seem of a kind to me, whereas this and C&P do not seem very similar. So it's very confusing all 'round.

Read more »

gimmecash.com

gitmanemekclash.com is a website that exists on the internet. It has a stock photo for you to enjoy on the front page. This post is SERIOUSLY supposed to be 300-500 words? I feel like a kid who's been assigned an essay for which they have zero inspiration and have to just furiously tread water to make the word count. I was in that situation a few times in college, or maybe more than a few, I'm kind of embarrassed about a lot of my output at that time. Jesus Christ, we're not even halfway there. Should I just list random facts from the website? That sounds kind of boring. I mean, I KNOW they're just trying to do some search optimization thing, which won't work very well because I did not include a link to their site and I intentionally mangled their name when I mentioned it and also I obscured it in the screenshot, but you REALLY have to wonder: what would ANYONE say about this? Also, where do they get the nerve to demand that random strangers say things about their website? If you're not paying me for this, what possible incentive is there? Two hundred words. I mean, I would assume it was a real website, it looks legit, but the fact that they send spam to strangers makes me doubt myself, so that may be a somewhat counterproductive thing to do. Well, the fact that the alleged human who sent me this "offer" doesn't have an email with the actual site's domain name might be another red flag, as might the fact that her alleged name is different than the one in her email. I do appreciate being called "dear," however. It makes me feel like ol' Ellen and I have a real relationship. That's 300.

Jean-Philippe Rameau, Les Paladins (1760)

Welcome to Rameau Ramblings. We're proud to be ranked among the top-ten English-language Rameau podcasts for the sixth straight year. Today we're look at JP's penultimate opera, Les Paladins. I guess that was fairly obvious from the title.

Read more »

Jean-Philippe Rameau, Les Indes galantes (1735)

All I want in this world is to watch baroque operas.  And to have a non-evil government.  Well, I can achieve one of these goals.

Read more »

George Frideric Handel, Antonio Vivaldi, Jean-Philippe Rameau, André Campra, Henry Purcell, Jean-Féry Rebel, Jean-Marie Leclair, & Giovanni Battista Ferrandini, The Enchanted Island (2011)

Peter Gelb, the Met's general manager, had a vision, and that vision was to support baroque music by commissioning an opera consisting of a pastiche of different composers with an English-language libretto telling a new story...well, I don't know whose idea the story was, and calling it "new" would only be partially correct. I think we can most accurately describe it as a Shakespearean remix. It was devised by the man known as Jeremy Sams. Known and loved by all!

Read more »