Category Archives: from Paul

Paul’s posts.

MAZZOLA, BIRNBAUM, AND SINGING ACTORS OFFER A BRILLIANT RIGOLETTO TO OPEN OPERA SEASON

For the past several years one couldn’t find a production of Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto outside of a “new and improved interpretation”, usually set in a time and place closer to our own. The reasoning was that such a reinterpretation made it easier for the  “boobus Americani” to see how the themes of the work relate […]

September 15, 2024 – 11:59 am | By Paul Kuritz | Posted in Acting, from Paul, History, Music, Newspapers, Opera, Quotations, Theater, Uncategorized | Comments Off on MAZZOLA, BIRNBAUM, AND SINGING ACTORS OFFER A BRILLIANT RIGOLETTO TO OPEN OPERA SEASON

ON THE 20TH CENTURY: ANOTHER HOMEGROWN CHICAGO MUSICAL SMASH

Unlike the fear of Y2K which heralded the new 21st century, the arrival the twentieth century was the occasion for enthusiasm, hope, and braggadocio. President William McKinley: “The century now drawing to a close has been most memorable in the world’s progress and history. The march of mankind in moral and intellectual advancement has been […]

June 3, 2024 – 10:40 am | By Paul Kuritz | Posted in Acting, Current Events, Dance, from Paul, History, Men and Women, Movies, Music, Newspapers, Quotations, Theater | Comments Off on ON THE 20TH CENTURY: ANOTHER HOMEGROWN CHICAGO MUSICAL SMASH

MADAMA BUTTERFLY AT THE MET: ASMIK GREGORIAN IS BUTTERFLY

The most recent study names Puccini’s Madama Butterfly as the sixth most popular opera in the world. In fact, seeing the opera at the age of sixteen prompted Yoko Watanabe (1953-2004) to a singing career, eventually to the position of the most famous of Japanese opera singers, certainly to be one of the most acclaimed […]

May 12, 2024 – 7:43 am | By Paul Kuritz | Posted in Acting, Books, Dance, from Paul, History, Men and Women, Music, Opera, Quotations, Theater | Comments Off on MADAMA BUTTERFLY AT THE MET: ASMIK GREGORIAN IS BUTTERFLY

MET OPERA OFFERS RONDINE, PUCCINI’S FRAGILE BITTERSWEET DELICACY

The invitation from Vienna to create an opera based on a sketch by Alfred Maria Willner, Franz Lehar’s librettist, tested Puccini’s stated dislike of the operettas with spoken dialogue . “It is the usual slipshod, banal operetta, the usual contrast between East and West, ballroom festivities and opportunities for dancing, with no study of character […]

April 22, 2024 – 10:52 am | By Paul Kuritz | Posted in Acting, Art, from Paul, History, Men and Women, Music, Opera, Poetry | Comments Off on MET OPERA OFFERS RONDINE, PUCCINI’S FRAGILE BITTERSWEET DELICACY

ELIJAH STILL SPEAKS THROUGH MENDELSSOHN’S GLORIOUS MUSIC AT CSO

  “Elijah is the peak of religious music between Beethoven’s Christ on the Mount of Olives (1802) and Wagner’s Parsifal (1882).” –Eduard Jacob Heinrich Elijah (1846), the second oratorio by Felix Mendelssohn, pays tribute  to Mendelssohn’s love and championship of the oratorios of Handel and Bach. Elijah is Mendelssohn’s reaffirmation of his Jewish heritage and […]

April 12, 2024 – 10:27 am | By Paul Kuritz | Posted in Acting, Current Events, from Paul, History, Music, Poetry, The Gospel of the Kingdom, Theater, Theology, Uncategorized | Comments Off on ELIJAH STILL SPEAKS THROUGH MENDELSSOHN’S GLORIOUS MUSIC AT CSO