Tag Archives: Wagner

Musical Gentrification

Posted on May 25, 2020 by barczablog

I don’t know about you, but I’ve got lots of time to think, to ponder questions old & new. One of my oldest questions is the conundrum of popularity in music. It’s a complicated phenomenon, and I’m not saying I … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Architecture & Design, Dance, theatre & musicals, Essays, Music and musicology, Opera, Personal ruminations & essays, Politics | Tagged Das Rheingold, gentrification, George Bernard Shaw, Patrice Chereau, profiteering, The Perfect Wagnerite, Wagner | Leave a comment

Plummer, Shakespeare & Oundjian

Posted on June 27, 2018 by barczablog

Tonight’s concert, the latest in the month-long Toronto Symphony celebration of Peter Oundjian, was like a cross between a pops concert and a play reading, titled “Christopher Plummer’s Symphonic Shakespeare”. It was like “Shakespeare’s Greatest Hits”, a series of textual … Continue reading →

Posted in Cinema, video & DVDs, Music and musicology, Opera, Reviews | Tagged Berlioz, Christopher Plummer, Debussy, Healey Willan, Korngold, Mendelssohn, Nino Rota, Peter Oundjian, Prokofiev, Shakespeare, Tchaikovsky, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Vaughan Williams, Wagner, William Walton | Leave a comment

Cry for me

Posted on May 2, 2018 by barczablog

Some actions are startlingly ambiguous. Right now for example I’m not shaving my upper lip. Am I growing a moustache –which would be an action—or am I simply not shaving my upper lip? I had that thought, thinking about a … Continue reading →

Posted in Cinema, video & DVDs, Music and musicology, Personal ruminations & essays, Psychology and perception | Tagged Beethoven, Debussy, Dumbo, Field of Dreams, JFK, Mozart effect, Parsifal, Poulenc, The Post, This is your Brain on Music, Wagner | 6 Comments

Late night reading

Posted on July 15, 2014 by barczablog

Whether it was a virus, a cold or summertime allergies isn’t the point. I’ve been awake at night, coughing, sneezing, blowing my nose, and otherwise trying not to be a nuisance to anyone unlucky enough to be under the same … Continue reading →

Posted in Books & Literature, Music and musicology, Opera, Reviews | Tagged Cage, Gershwin, Glass, Hallelujah Junction, Ives, John Adams, Peter Sellars, Reich, Schumann, Stockhausen, Stravinsky, The Death of Klinghoffer, Wagner, Webern | 1 Comment

Adès contra Parsifal

Posted on April 13, 2013 by barczablog

Ever notice that conversations can reinforce and honour contrary positions? When you sit down with someone over latkes, beers or (name your pleasure), the celebration and enactment of community & indeed, communion, makes the points where you diverge immaterial. You … Continue reading →

Posted in Books & Literature, Personal ruminations & essays | Tagged Boito, Hoiby, Mark Shulgasser, Otello, Othello, Parsifal, Shakespeare, Tempest, Thomas Adès, Tom Service, Verdi, Wagner | 4 Comments

Love’s Dark Shore

Posted on February 12, 2013 by barczablog

How apt that in the week of Valentine’s Day, between performances of Tristan und Isolde, a paean to love, that the Canadian Opera Company should present a concert program titled “Love’s Dark Shore” in the Richard Bradshaw Auditorium. We heard … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews | Tagged Franz-Josef Selig, Rachel Andrist, Richard Strauss, Schubert, Tristan und Isolde, Wagner | Leave a comment

10 Questions for Franz-Josef Selig

Posted on February 9, 2013 by barczablog

German bass Franz-Josef Selig is making his Canadian Opera Company debut as King Marke in Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. Selig has performed at the world’s great opera houses including the Met, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, La Scala, Wiener Staatsoper, … Continue reading →

Posted in Interviews | Tagged Franz Schubert, Franz-Josef Selig, King Marke, Richard Strauss, Tristan und Isolde, Wagner | 4 Comments

Sellars market

Posted on January 27, 2013 by barczablog

At the intermissions of Tristan und Isolde Friday (dress rehearsal) there was madness in the air, a place rife with miscommunication. Wagner himself said that good performances would make people mad (or crazy), so perhaps that was the problem. A … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews | Tagged Ben Heppner, Bill VIola, COC, Franz-Josef Selig, Peter Sellars, Schopenhauer, Tristan und Isolde, Wagner | 6 Comments

A remembered tune: Les Troyens

Posted on January 2, 2013 by barczablog

Melodies are time-machines. I can hear a song and instantly I go back in time. Composers know this. It’s why films often employ compositions we’ve heard before to invoke a whole set of meanings. In Forrest Gump Robert Zemeckis accomplishes … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal ruminations & essays | Tagged Aeneid, Berlioz, Forrest Gump, Les Troyens, memory, opera, Shakespeare, Vergil, Wagner | 1 Comment

Apocalypso

Posted on December 21, 2012 by barczablog

What music accompanies the end of the world? I suppose it depends whether you’re cowering or celebrating, sitting, dancing or running for cover. I ask ironically, of course, because the whole Mayan thing is silly. It’s a finite calendar, limited … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal ruminations & essays | Tagged Beethoven, Handel, Prince, REM, Wagner | Leave a comment