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review of The Berlin Philharmonic at the Salzburg Festival, 1962

July 4, 2014  •  Opera News

VERDI: Messa da Requiem

 Leontyne Price, Giulietta Simionato; Giuseppe Zampieri, Nicolai Ghiaurov; Vienna Singverein, Berlin Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan. Testament SBT 1491

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MOZART: Symphony No. 40; MAHLER: Kindertotenlieder; R. STRAUSS: Also Sprach Zarathusthra

 Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau; Berlin Philharmonic, Karl Böhm. Testament SBT 21489 (2)

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review of Boris Godunov

July 2014  •  Opera News

Alexander Tsymbalyuk, Gerhard Siegel, Markus Eiche, Anatoli Kotscherga; Bayerisches Staatsorchester,Kent  Nagano. Production: Calixto Bieito.

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review of Written on Skin

May 5, 2014  •  Opera News

Salome, move over. In Written on Skin, an adulteress feeds on her lover's heart. George Benjamin's second opera derives from the — let's hope apocryphal — vita of the thirteenth-century troubadour Guillem de Cabestany, recycled by Boccaccio a century later in The Decameron (day four, tale nine). Benjamin's version sets a mock-narrative "text" by Martin Crimp, who presents the action as seen (and in part reenacted) by a squadron of present-day angels, casually conversant with car parks, the Holocaust, pornography and frequent-flyer miles.

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From the Archive: On the Roads of the Riviera
À la recherche de Picasso, Matisse et al.

April 15, 2014

Travel writing as such was never my genre, but when an editor at one of the top travel books asked me to scout the haunts of Picasso and other modern masters on the Riviera, I couldn't say no. I remember the trip as equal parts boondoggle and serious grind. The expense account was lavish. Still, between pilgrimage sites, deluxe hideaways, and hot restaurants, the conscientious reporter seldom had five minutes to kick back. There was no doubt that the editors liked what I came home with, for they paid me on the spot. Days later, a new editor-in-chief took over and killed the entire inventory, sight unseen. Naturally. Way of the world. Heigh ho. (Merde.)

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review of Rienzi

April 2014  •  Opera News

"Allmächt'ger Vater, blick herab…." The grave radiance of the hero's prayer from the twenty-seven-year-old Wagner's Rienzi, Last of the Tribuneshas found superstar champions from Lauritz Melchior to Jonas Kaufmann. For listeners who wish to seek no further, two excuses will serve: Wagner disowned the opera, and Hitler adored it. Then again, these might be reasons to take a hard look.

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Books by Matthew Gurewitsch