Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Westminster Opera Theatre

Shakespeare Radio April Broadcasts

Get ready to hoist a glass with Sir John. Coming up at around 8:30, it’s Edward Elgar’s symphonic study “Falstaff.”

Then at 9:00, we’ll be joined by William Hobbs, music director of Westminster Opera Theatre, and Trent Blanton, stage director for Westminster’s production of Verdi’s “Falstaff,” which will be performed at the Robert L. Annis Playhouse on the campus of Westminster Choir College in Princeton this Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m.

Later, it’s on to the dramatic symphony “Romeo and Juliet,” by Hector Berlioz.

It’s all music inspired by Shakespeare every Thursday morning in April, as we remember the Bard on the 400th anniversary of his death (on April 23, 1616), on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com.

April 14, 2016
Shakespeare on the Radio This Week

Strike up, pipers!

This Thursday morning on WPRB, we continue with our commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare – on April 23, 1616 – with the second of four programs devoted to music inspired by his sonnets and plays.

Depending on how timings align, tomorrow’s playlist may include Mily Balakirev’s incidental music for “King Lear,” Sir Edward Elgar’s symphonic study “Falstaff,” and Hector Berlioz’s dramatic symphony “Romeo and Juliet,” among others. But who knows? I’ve got a whole suitcase full of Shakespeareana, which I’ll keep playing and replenishing through the end of the month.

What’s certain is that we’ll be joined in 9:00 hour by William Hobbs, music director of Westminster Opera Theatre, and Trent Blanton, stage director for a production of Verdi’s “Falstaff,” which will be performed at the Robert L. Annis Playhouse on the campus of Westminster Choir College in Princeton this Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m.

To borrow from Juliet, our only love springs from our only hate, every Thursday in April from 6 to 11 EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. Radio is such sweet sorrow, on Classic Ross Amico.

April 13, 2016
Handel’s Triumph Staged as Opera in NJ

Hallelujah! Something different for a change.

Graduate students of Westminster Opera Theatre will be presenting Handel’s first oratorio, “Il trionfo del tempo e del disinganno” (“The Triumph of Time and Disillusionment”), in Italian with English supertitles, in two performances with orchestra, at Yvonne Theater, Rider University, in Lawrenceville, today and tomorrow at 7:30 p.m. A third, free performance will take place, with piano, Sunday at 4 p.m.

The oratorio will be staged as an opera, with the allegorical figures of Pleasure, Time and Truth in pursuit of Beauty.

Read more about it in my article in today’s Trenton Times.

http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2015/12/classical_music_westminster_op.html

PHOTOS: The young Handel with contemporaneous timepiece

December 4, 2015
Shakespeare Inspires Princeton’s Music Scene

After 400 years, the Bard continues to provide some great shakes. Two Shakespeare-related works will be served up in the Princeton area over the course of the next week.

Tonight at 8 p.m., the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra will unveil Darryl Kubian’s “O for a Muse of Fire” (which takes its title from the Prologue to “Henry V”), as part of a concert to be held at Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium. Also on the program will be Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini,” with pianist Serhiy Savlov, and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 “Pathètique.”

Though written two hundred years after Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet,” Bellini’s opera, “I Capuleti e i Montecchi” (“The Capulets and the Monatgues”), had a kind of parallel genesis, bypassing the Bard to draw from the same Italian Renaissance sources. Westminster Opera Theatre will perform the work next Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m., at the Bart Luedeke Center, Rider University, in Lawrenceville.

Find out more in my article in today’s Trenton Times:

http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2015/03/classical_music_shakespeare_in.html

“Orpheus with his lute made trees,
And the mountain tops that freeze,
Bow themselves, when he did sing:
To his music plants and flowers
Ever sprung; as sun and showers
There had made a lasting spring.”

Henry VIII, Act III, Scene 1

March 20, 2015

Tag Cloud

RECENT POSTS