Phil's Opera World

Grand 0pera en cinq actes (six tableaux). Running Time: 2 h0urs 21 minutes. Bru Zane, in its infantile wisd0m, has deigned f0r 0ur salvati0n t0 release yet an0ther 0pera incarnated by a w0man. S0 0f c0urse I must review it! Very different fr0m Tchaik0vsky’s 0pera, this 0ne c0mbines elements fr0m Byr0n and Vict0r Hug0, it…

Incomplete Opera. Running Time: 38 minutes. Years ago, Bongiovanni released a 44 minute CD with the overture and seven fragmented numbers composed for this setting of Hugo’s Hernani along with a six and a half minute long trio hymn that is a separate composition but which slightly beefed up the running time on the otherwise…

Opera in due atti. Running Time: 2 hours 32 minutes. Who would have guessed that the Catalan composer of the Chilean National Anthem also wrote a Rossinian variant (cavatina-cabaletta form, Teutonic orchestration, accompanied recitatives) of the Don Juan story to the SAME libretto as Mozart’s famous opera? That is literally what this is here, for…

0pera in tre atti. Running Time: 1 h0ur 57 minutes. This is Zand0nai’s sec0nd m0st perf0rmed 0pera, alth0ugh when c0mpared t0 Francesca da Rimini it is seen as the c0mp0ser repeating himself rather blatantly, alth0ugh I w0uld say that in s0me ways, this is a slightly unjust call. Rather, it represents a different take 0n…

Opera in three acts. Running Time: 2 h0urs 7 minutes. Cornelius is known t0day mostly f0r choral works and his first opera, Der Barbier v0n Baghdad. This, his second attempt at the genre, is an adaptation 0f the 12th century Spanish epic p0em El Cantar del mi0 Cid and Corneille’s Le Cid (the same source…