Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Glass' s Fall of the House of Usher at the Munich Opera Festival .

Roderick Usher: Harrie Van der Plas
Madeline Usher: Ella Tyran
A doctor: Hans Kittelmann
A servant: Sebastian Campione

American composer Philip Glass is likely the chief representative in opera of what has been called minimalist music and on with those by John Adams, his deeds are well known at many important opera houses. Suffice it to think that his opera Satyagraha was performed at New York Metropolitan during last season and leave be revived again next season. The Fall of the Home of Usher was premiered in 1988 in Cambridge (Massachusetts) and it is not among the composer`s most popular works, despite being based on the celebrated narrative of the same title by Edgar Allan Poe. Philip Glass`s music is interesting and fiiting for Poe`s atmosphere of secret and the answer seemed to me far better than I expected, considering that I would not take his music with me to a desolate island. The opera was offered here in a German translation.

The product by Venezuelan director Carlos Wagner is very appropriate to the plot, creating an excellent atmosphere of mystery from the outset. The present shows the Usher mansion portrayed as a whale skeleton with a staircase, in which all the process takes place. The present direction by Carlos Wagner is honorable and draws in the care of the interview at every moment.

Lukas Beikircher offered a well conceived reading from the pit, revealing a complete cognition of Glass`s music and acquiring a respectable performance from the orchestra.

The opera offers three primary characters, the Usher twins - Roderick and Madeline - and William, their childhood friend, who presents the story. After he receives a letter asking him to visit the twins, William becomes a viewer to what the story of ownership and an end that happens in the haunted ghost house. Baritone Gregor Dalal was a well - cast William, Roderick Usher was tenor Harrie van der Plas, who gave a right interpretation also, while soprano Ella Tyran was Madeline Usher, the primary stress of care for the audience. She only vocalizes through the opera, but she was impressive doing it.

The field was about 60 % of content and the final reception was very enthusiastic.

Jos M. Irurzun

Saturday, July 23, 2011

USHER: Slouching towards September !.Jul11

July 23, 2011

by Graham Usher - Al-Ahram Weekly Online - 21-27 July 2011

On 14 July the Arab League endorsed the West Bank PalestinianAuthority`s (PA) plan to seek full membership as a country "on the 1967lines" at the United Nations in September, risking a near certain UnitedStates veto and despite dwindling enthusiasm from several key EuropeanUnion states.

Sunday, July 3, 2011

The Black Cat Review Edgar Allan Poe

And so came, as if to my last and irrevocableoverthrow, the feeling of PERVERSENESS. Of this spirit philosophy takesno account. Yet I am not more certainly that my soul lives, than I am thatperverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart-one of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which givedirection to the case of Man.

Saturday, July 2, 2011

ESSENCE MUSIC FEST FAB: Usher, Fantasia And Jennifer Hudson Rock .

Thousands of music lovers went downward to the ESSENCE Music Festival this weekend in New Orleans, Louisiana and we have pics from Day One at the Superdome last night. See Usher, Macy Gray, Fantasia, and Taraji P. Henson hit the leg and partying it up in VIP after the jump....

Jennifer Hudson was one of the primary attractions at the festival inside the Superdomethis year.