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Virtual Review: Delightful ‘The White Cat’ fairy tale from Les Délices

EMA Features, News

Fairy tales may seem like an unlikely source for a tragédie lyrique. But Cleveland-based Les Délices, in a newly created production of ‘The White Cat,’ combines the two genres with arresting results. Based on a 1698 fairy tale by the pioneering Madame d’Aulnoy, the English-language opera weaves a story about the virtues of friendship, loyalty, and love through puppets and a pastiche of French Baroque favorites by Lully, Couperin, and other composers.

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Canto: Imagine East and West in Song

Canto, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, News

We can start to envision a world where ancient music from opposite sides of the globe co-exists on a program, creating and exploring a new definition for historically informed performances. Allowing ourselves to explore different aural palettes enriches us. When we learn about and understand different cultures with open hearts and minds, we begin to appreciate one another. 

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Madness, Revenge, and New Music: Looking for the Lost Finale of ‘L’Orfeo’

EMA Features, News

This week, Seattle-based Pacific MusicWorks, for their upcoming season finale (May 20 and 21), will give the world premiere of a new musical completion of the finale scene that appeared at the end of the originally published libretto for Claudio Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo. Combining sung and danced performance, this alternate ending is the work of Stephen Stubbs, the lutenist, conductor, and the founder and artistic director of Pacific MusicWorks, with choreography by Baroque dance specialist Anna Mansbridge.

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Book Review: New Perspectives on Music and Jewish Culture in Italy

EMA Book Reviews, News

This insightful and well-researched collection of 10 essays shed light on Jewish musical activity in the Italian peninsula from the 14th to the 17th centuries. Unique to this time and place was an efflorescence of musical activity—in the sense of European “high culture”—and the authors point to the many instances of cultural, economic and social connections. There’s a focus on two phenomena: the participation by Jews in European musical culture, and the creation of new Jewish musical artifacts that resulted from a fusion of the two cultures.

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South Asian Singers Find a Home in Early Music

EMA Features, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, News

Sopranos Maya Kherani and Sherezade Panthaki (at right) and tenor Asitha Tennekoon are among a growing number of South Asian musicians working to promote more diversity in early-music casting and programming while building their own impressive careers. “I knew what it was like to not have role models,” says Kherani. “I thought if I could change that for one young person by being proud and open about my heritage, I should do it.”

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