Opus Arte

This month’s newly released opera productions are dramatic masterpieces, exposing ways in which complication is implicit to the human experience, in very different ways.

       © Mike Hoban, 2009

The summer festival season is upon us; picnics, hazy evenings and beautiful music amidst beautiful scenery. Here is just a tiny snapshot of some of the festivals bringing classical music to life across Europe over the warmer months.

8th June 1671 – birth of Tomaso Giovanni Albinoni. Venetian composer Albinoni was one of the chief Italian artists of the Baroque period, and composed around 50 operas over the course of his prolific career. Nevertheless, it is for his instrumental pieces that he is most well known today, and particularly for his championing of the oboe as a soloist's instrument. He proved an influential figure to Johann Sebastian Bach who took inspiration from Albinoni's themes.

The Classical Brit Awards took place on Thursday May 13th at the Royal Albert Hall in London. The full glittering event will be broadcast on ITV1 on Tuesday May 18th at 10:35pm.

© Leon Brocard (2/5/2005)

10 May 1894 – premiere of Guntram, an opera by Richard Strauss. Guntram was Strauss’ first opera and it premiered at the Grossherzogliches Hoftheater in Weimar. It was not particularly successful. However, it received a new lease of life at the hands of Gustav Mahler who used the Prelude to Act 1 during a concert the following year, and subsequently premiered other Preludes from the opera in both Vienna and New York.