The Opera Tattler
Reviews of Performances and their Audiences
Category: Appomattox
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* Notes * Appomattox ended its 7 performance run yesterday. Sara Jobin conducted well, and the only weak points I noticed were when the orchestra overwhelmed Brian Leerhuber (Robert E. Lee) at the end of Act I Scene 2 and during the choral "Clap your hands all you people" in Act I Scene 4. Brian…
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* Notes * Appomattox had its world premiere last Friday. I must confess I do not enjoy contemporary music, in fact, I am not overfond of many operas after Fidelio. This is ridiculous, given that this encompasses Verdi, Wagner, and Puccini. Setting that aside, I found Appomattox rather less challenging than Doctor Atomic, Le Grand…
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* Notes * The final dress rehearsal of Appomattox was last night. On the whole, I found the music, libretto, and production rather dark and a bit heavy-handed. The music, unsurprisingly, is reiterative and the singing style more declamatory than lyrical. There are no soaring high notes, but this does keep the text clear, at…
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Kip Cranna moderated a panel discussion on Appomattox yesterday evening. The panelists included composer Philip Glass, librettist Christopher Hampton, conductor Dennis Russell Davies, director Robert Woodruff, baritone Dwayne Croft (Robert E. Lee), and baritone Andrew Shore (Ulysses S. Grant). Each person was asked about how he became part of this world premiere. We learnt that…
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* Notes * The word icon is from Greek εἰκών meaning "image." Last night, Philip Glass was interviewed by David Gockley at the Interview with an Icon donor event. The first half of the interview was devoted to Glass' life, working at his father's record store as a child; going to Peabody, University of Chicago,…
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