Happy New Year everyone! Welcome to Issue 31: Love and Disorder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was a real treat to discuss Mozart\u2019s masterpiece\u00a0Don Giovanni<\/em> with the brilliant David Stern\u00a0<\/a>back in October. David is Music Director of Palm Beach Opera and founder of Opera Fuoco \u2013 the independent, Paris-based opera company. He has also been Music Director of the Israel Opera in Tel Aviv, the Opera St. Gallen in Switzerland, and previously led the Philharmonie S\u00fcdwestfalen in Germany. David has an infectious passion for Mozart, in particular the Da Ponte operas.\u00a0Notes<\/em>\u00a0covered\u00a0Don Giovanni<\/em>\u00a0in its very first issue, but David\u2019s focus on the piece\u2019s articulation (one of the most contentious issues in the performance of Mozart\u2019s music) is likely to take your understanding of the piece to a whole new level. He prepared numerous examples in advance for us to discuss (we focussed on Act I), which I don\u2019t think has happened before in any of my interviews with conductors. His experience and knowledge is vast and he was thoroughly entertaining. Have a score to hand, because David dives deep!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Next we have Friedrich Haider<\/a>. It was wonderful to catch up with him \u2013 I first interviewed him back in 2019 on Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari\u2019s opera\u00a0I<\/em>\u00a0gioielli della Madonna<\/em>. For over 20 years, Friedrich has been an ardent Wolf-Ferrari advocate \u2013 he first stumbled across his music in an antique bookstore in 2001, where he found the vocal score of\u00a0Il segreto di Susanna<\/em>\u00a0in old box of music. Haider\u2019s indefatigable enthusiasm has ensured that Wolf-Ferrari\u2019s music has steadily increased in popularity over the years. Opera Holland Park\u2019s production of\u00a0Il segreto di Susanna<\/em>\u00a0was first performed in 2019, and returned for the 2024 season. This time he chose to discuss his new orchestrations of a selection of songs by the same composer. Haider himself formed the song cycle by selecting specific songs from Wolf-Ferrari\u2019s songbooks, and has named it\u00a0Quando to vidi\u00a0<\/em>(\u2018When I first laid eyes on you\u2019). The cycle has now been recorded with the soprano Bianca Tognocchi, and is beautifully orchestrated.\u00a0More information can also be found in this recent video<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n