Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Boheme Opera NJ

Boheme Opera NJ Celebrates 30 Years with Aida

Boheme Opera NJ will celebrate its 30th anniversary with two performances of Verdi’s “Aida” at The College of New Jersey, this Friday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m.

Joseph and Sandra Pucciatti staged their first production – a skeletal performance of “I Pagliacci” – in a Trenton parking lot, back in 1981. From this unlikely acorn sprang central New Jersey’s most enduring opera company, which gave its first main stage performance in 1989.

Opera is a colorful business. Read all about the Pucciattis’ incredible journey, from “Hey! Let’s put on a show!” to the Radamès’ triumphal march, in my article in this week’s U.S. 1 Newspaper – PrincetonInfo, out today.

https://princetoninfo.com/boheme-opera-celebrates-30-with-triumphal-march/

PHOTO: Marsha Thompson will head the cast in this weekend’s “Aida”

April 3, 2019
Fascism, Film Scores & “Lucia” Highlights

An Italian Jewish composer who fled fascism in Europe. A conductor who refused to apologize for his “robust leadership style,” and instead opted to resign from the Swedish Royal Opera. Both wound up in the United States.

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco settled in Hollywood, where he continued to compose concert music for Andres Segovia and Jascha Heiftez and embarked on a side career of writing scores for films like “And Then There Were None” (1945) and “The Loves of Carmen” (1948).

Sixten Ehrling took over the reins of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra from departing principal conductor Paul Paray. He also taught at the Juilliard School, where his pupils included Myung-Whun Chung, JoAnn Falletta, and Andrew Litton.

I hope you’ll join me this afternoon, as we celebrate the birthdays of Castelnuovo-Tedesco and Ehrling, alongside that of American pianist Garrick Ohlsson.

At 5:00, I’ll be joined by Jerry Kalstein and Dora Schnur of Boheme Opera NJ, who will tell us a bit about the company’s upcoming production of “Lucia di Lammermoor.” “Lucia” will be performed at The College of New Jersey’s TCNJ-Kendall Hall on Friday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. To bookend our conversation, we’ll enjoy a couple selections from Donizetti’s opera, including the famous Act II sextet.

Round out your workday and enliven your afternoon commute with great music from a variety of sources, from 4 to 7 p.m. EDT on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

Act I “Lucia” finale: Chi mi fren-etic

April 3, 2017
Haydn Anniversary Celebration on WPRB

Tomorrow morning, on the eve of the anniversary of the birth of Franz Joseph Haydn (on March 31, 1732), we’ll anticipate the great day with music inspired by Haydn, music by Haydn’s colleagues, and rarely-heard works by Haydn himself.

Other composers will include Johannes Brahms, Norman Dello Joio, Marcel Grandjany, Roman Hoffstetter, Anton Kraft, Andre Previn, Maurice Ravel, Johann Peter Salomon, Alfred Schnittke, Ananda Sukarlan, and Joseph Weigl, Haydn’s godson. We’ll even have a piano concerto by Haydn Wood, who was named for Haydn by his music-mad parents, though they pronounced it “Hayden.”

At 10:00, I’ll be joined by members of Boheme Opera NJ, who will talk a little bit about the company’s upcoming production of “Lucia di Lammermoor,” which will be performed at The College of New Jersey’s TCNJ-Kendall Hall on April 7 at 8 p.m. and April 9 at 3 p.m., so we might just hear a selection or two by Donizetti, as well.

Otherwise, it will be a prolonged game of Haydn seek, tomorrow morning from 6 to 11 EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com. Join me for a full morning of hidden Haydn, on Classic Ross Amico.

March 29, 2017
Mozart Tributes WPRB Celebrates a Master

“Mozart! Forgive your assassin! I confess, I killed you!”

Poor Antonio Salieri. Wracked with guilt (at least, according to playwright Peter Shaffer) for having “killed” Mozart.

We’re killing Mozart with kindness this morning on WPRB, as we salute the 18th century master on the eve of his birthday anniversary. However, we won’t hear a single note of Mozart, except perhaps as filtered through the sensibilities of others. It will be a full morning of Mozart tributes, ranging from the composer’s day to our own, as old favorites by Tchaikovsky and Reger exist cheek-by-jowl with works by living composers Calvin Bowman, Jonathan Dove, and Pulitzer Prize-winner Kevin Puts.

It’s a cheeky concept, but you have to admit, it’s a lot more interesting, and certainly a lot more creative, than playing all-Mozart, which will be the case with most classical music stations tomorrow (as I will amply demonstrate when the time comes).

We make the most of Mozart this morning, from 6 to 11 EST, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. I forgo contredanses for contrarianism, on Classic Ross Amico.

At 9:00, I’ll be joined by Jerry Kalstein, president of Boheme Opera NJ. Boheme Opera will be presenting semi-staged performances of Rossini’s “The Barber of Seville” (a.k.a. the prequel to Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro”) at The College of New Jersey, this Sunday at 3 p.m., and at Cherry Hill West High School, on Saturday, February 4, at 7 p.m. Tune in to our interview to find out more, or look online at bohemeopera.com.

January 26, 2017
Carmen Opera NJ This Weekend

This weekend, Boheme Opera NJ will present THE opera for people who think they don’t like opera, Georges Bizet’s “Carmen.” Even if someone thinks singing isn’t their thing, they can while away the time counting the staggering number of hit tunes, surely recognizable from their incessant use in cartoons, movies and television commercials.

The fully staged production will be sung in French with English supertitles, with dialogue spoken (as Bizet intended) in English translation.

Performances will take place tonight at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. in the Kendall Main Stage Theater at The College of New Jersey Center for the Arts in Ewing.

No bulls were harmed in the making of this opera. Read more about it in my article in today’s Trenton Times.

http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2016/04/classical_music_boheme_opera_p_1.html

“Carmen” figure skating
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEOrLz6fl_Q&nohtml5=False

Tom and Jerry “Carmen Get It!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A98i15hguPY

“Bad News Bears” Carmen

Comcast “Carmen”

Marx Brothers “Carmen”

April 8, 2016

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