Posts by Ken Herman
Opera NEO’s Saturday Concert Offers Tantalizing Previews of Music from Operas in the Company’s 2019 Summer Festival
Having survived Valentines Day, San Diego’s Opera NEO company has chosen the theme “Love Is in the Air” to title its concert of operatic airs and ensembles this Saturday, February 16, at 6:00 p.m. in the sanctuary of Palisades Presbyterian Church in Allied Gardens.
Read MoreThe Danish String Quartet Combines Exciting Repertory and Sublime Playing
Following their established pattern of visiting San Diego, the Danish String Quartet was overdue. But the sizzling concert by this accomplished young ensemble on Friday, February 8, in the Auditorium at TSRI, certainly made up for lost time.
Read MoreSan Diego Opera’s Thrilling ‘Rigoletto’
San Diego Opera opened a smart, vocally rich production Verdi’s “Rigoletto,” a classic gem of Grand Guignol theatrics Saturday, February 2, at San Diego Civic Theatre. Combining a large cast of stylish Verdian voices with Michael Cavanaugh’s sleek, tight direction, General Director David Bennett has clearly pleased everyone in the Civic Theatre audience . . .
Read MoreRenga Ensemble Presents a Bouquet of Seminal 20th-Century Works to Climax the ‘Hearing the Future’ Festival
Renga, a heady fusion of virtuoso instrumentalists from UC San Diego and the San Diego Symphony, offered a probing coda to the Symphony’s January festival “Hearing the Future” on Saturday, January 26, at the university’s Conrad Prebys Concert Hall.
Read MoreMatthew Aucoin and the San Diego Symphony Lift Up Music’s Future in Both Past and Present Modes
As the San Diego Symphony’s ambitious, engaging festival “Hearing the Future” takes its victory lap, Festival Curator Matthew Aucoin led the orchestra in an exuberant concert in Copley Symphony Hall Friday, January 25. His refreshing approach to program design completely ignored the traditional overture-concerto-symphony formula: each half of the concert offered seven shorter works or…
Read MoreTenor Scott Quinn May be the Villain in San Diego Opera’s ‘Rigoletto’–but He Has the Best Music
Tenor Scott Quinn, a gregarious Texan, can hardly wait for the curtain to go up on San Diego Opera’s production of Giussepe Verdi’s popular opera “Rigoletto.” “The reward of playing the Duke of Mantua in this opera is that I get to sing Verdi’s great music, and the Duke gets all of the best music–or at least the most tuneful music–in this opera.”
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