Copyright 2013 Matthew Gurewitsch Sat, 18 May 2013 12:40:02 -0400 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Matthew Gurewitsch :: Writings http://www.beyondcriticism.com matthew@beyondcriticism.com (Matthew Gurewitsch) webmaster@pundicity.com en-us http://www.beyondcriticism.com/13317/a-big-man-still-dream-of-the-big-times Fri, 17 May 2013 09:00:00 EST Honolulu — "The Blind Side" meets "The Great Caruso." In the spring of 2007, Kiri Te Kanawa, the Maori-descended diva from New Zealand, had been churning out autographs in the Met Opera Shop at Lincoln Center for more than an hour when a slip of paper... http://www.beyondcriticism.com/13306/his-ukulele-is-on-fire Fri, 10 May 2013 09:00:00 EST Maui, Hawaii. Just about anyone can pick up the ukulele and make music in no time, but who ever goes beyond the basics? Historically, the lowly Portuguese-descended cousin of the guitar has served to accompany the vocals of aloha-spirited islanders or... http://www.beyondcriticism.com/13304/coda-the-solti-legacy Tue, 1 May 2013 09:00:00 EST Late in life, Georg Solti (1912–97) harbored no illusions about his brand. "Always people want to characterize me as fiery, temperamental," he told me in Salzburg in the summer of 1992. "Now they say I have a lighter touch. I'm an all-around musician.... http://www.beyondcriticism.com/13173/on-dvd-daniel-catan-il-postino Sun, 1 Apr 2013 09:00:00 EST What is the sound of two hands clapping? Bad news, as Plácido Domingo must have known the moment he finished his first big sing in Il Postino. Adapted from Michael Radford's international hit film of 1994, the late Daniel Catán's fifth and final work for... http://www.beyondcriticism.com/13050/gone-today-here-tomorrow-pirgu-romeo Tue, 12 Mar 2013 09:00:00 EST The manuscript of my recent profile of the Albanian tenor Saimir Pirgu in the New York Times carried a San Francisco dateline, which one of my editors very sensibly suggested we remove. True, my interview with the artist had taken place in that city,... http://www.beyondcriticism.com/2013/03/culture-shock-cue-kudos-for-qurrat-ann-kadwani Mon, 11 Mar 2013 23:01:05 EST A Muslim couple from India pulls up stakes and moves to New York in search of opportunity for the next generation. But do they settle among compatriots in Queens? No. They land in the Bronx, where blacks and HIspanics are taking over from whites in full... http://www.beyondcriticism.com/13045/tenor-from-the-dark-side-of-the-moon-saimir-pirgu Fri, 8 Mar 2013 09:00:00 EST "This is the house of God. You can't turn me away." Admittedly, the language is reconstructed and from a foreign tongue, but the facts are the facts. In September 2000, in Bolzano, at the southern foot of the Dolomites in the Italian Tirol, Saimir Pirgu,... http://www.beyondcriticism.com/13062/a-glyndebourne-turn-of-the-screw Fri, 1 Mar 2013 09:00:00 EST Miah Persson, Susan Bickley, Giselle Allen; Toby Spence; London Philharmonic Orchestra, Jakub Hrůša. Production: Jonathan Kent. FRA Musica FRA 507 (Blu-ray) or FRA 007 (DVD), 111 mins. (opera), 22 mins. (bonus), subtitled The Turn of the Screw unfolds at... http://www.beyondcriticism.com/13101/the-performance-i-cant-forget Thu, 1 Mar 2013 09:00:00 EST In conversation, performing artists of every stripe keep telling us how vital a role we play as spectators. But how rarely they let us know whether we have played our roles well or badly? When they do, it may be worth connecting the dots. The first time... http://www.beyondcriticism.com/2013/01/les-miz-in-reel-time Mon, 7 Jan 2013 22:36:00 EST So the cast of Les Misérables sang live, to the accompaniment of an off-camera piano piped into their ears? You could have fooled me. The memo arrived only after I saw the movie. As I watched, it had never crossed my mind that the actors were not... http://www.beyondcriticism.com/2013/01/esprit-de-lescalier-tosca Sun, 6 Jan 2013 22:04:44 EST "Happy are they that hear their detractions and can put them to mending," says Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing. Yes, but sometimes we must do our own detracting. Yesterday, with some misgivings, I posted my recent Opera News review of the current... http://www.beyondcriticism.com/12739/tosca-giacomo-puccini Sat, 5 Jan 2013 09:00:00 EST Angela Gheorghiu; Jonas Kaufmann, Bryn Terfel; Royal Opera Chorus, Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Antonio Pappano. Production: Jonathan Kent. EMI Classics 4 04063 9, 120 mins. (opera), 8 mins. (bonus), subtitled In 2006, Jonathan Kent was charged... http://www.beyondcriticism.com/12453/wotan-revenge Mon, 22 Oct 2012 09:00:00 EST A wild and crazy Ring at the Metropolitan Opera, where the shelf life of such blockbusters is measured in decades—who in his right mind could have dreamt of such a thing? Nothing wears off faster than the shock of the new. The eminently sensible mandate... http://www.beyondcriticism.com/12318/cavalli-giasone Sat, 22 Sep 2012 09:00:00 EST The career of Francesco Cavalli (1602–76) falls squarely between those of Claudio Monteverdi (1567–1643), the founding giant of opera, and George Frideric Handel (1685–1759), the second giant. Yet in the judgment of his contemporaries, Cavalli reigned... http://www.beyondcriticism.com/12317/sciarrino-luci-mie-traditrici Fri, 1 Sep 2012 09:00:00 EST The Renaissance princeling Carlo Gesualdo, prized in our time for the daring chromatics of his blazing madrigals, was notorious in his own time for the slaughter of his wife and her lover in flagrante. An almost exact contemporary of Shakespeare's, he...