4/5
While the joys of proper live music are still far off, comfort is found in watching this quartet s agile delight in well-known tunes
23 January 2021 • 1:44pm
Inventive: drummer Eric Harland
While live performance to an audience remains off-limits, a handful of jazz clubs are managing to broadcast live-streamed concerts. One of them is the most venerable club of them all, the Village Vanguard in New York. Since the first lockdown began it’s hosted a regular series of top-rank acts, all at the rock-bottom price of $10 – and without public subsidy.
What’s missing in these streamed gigs is the energy that comes from a real live audience. To compensate, the Vanguard’s streamed concerts are on the short side. One certainly misses the unbuttoned sense you get in a live gig that the players have all the time in the world. On the other hand, an unbuttoned musician can slip into garrulous note-spinning, and in these streamed gigs the playing has a taut and disciplined feel.
1 pm ET: Wiener Staatsoper presents
Giselle. Conductor: Valery Ovsyanikov, choreography: Elena Tschernischova after Jean Coralli, Jules Perrot and Marius Petipa. With Nina Poláková, Masayu Kimoto, Rebecca Horner, Andrey Kaydanovskiy, Alice Firenze, Leonardo Basílio, and Soloists and Corps de ballet des Wiener Staatsballetts. Production from September 2017. Register for free and view here.
2:30 pm ET: Philharmonie de Paris presents Casadesus conducts Debussy, Ravel, Schumann & Beethoven. Jean-Claude Casadesus conducts the Orchestre du Conservatoire de Paris in a Franco-German program of Debussy’s
Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, Ravel’s
Pavane pour une infante défunte Schumann’s Piano Concerto with soloist David Kadouch, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1. View here. LIVE
2020 year in review: Best albums came as COVID-19 made music more essential than ever in a year we d all like to forget mdjonline.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from mdjonline.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Verdi’s
Un Ballo in Maschera. Starring Aprile Millo, Harolyn Blackwell, Florence Quivar, Luciano Pavarotti, and Leo Nucci, conducted by James Levine. From January 26, 1991. View here and for 24 hours.
Wagner’s
Das Rheingold. Conductor: Adam Fischer, director: Sven-Eric Bechtolf. With Tomasz Konieczny, Norbert Ernst, Jochen Schmeckenbecher, Herwig Pecoraro, and Michaela Schuster. Production from January 2016. Register for free and view here.
Sunday, January 3 Handel’s
Semele. First streamed on OperaVision at its premiere in Berlin on May 12, 2018. Barrie Kosky’s production returns as part of the Komische Oper winter streaming festival. Konrad Junghänel conducts a cast including Philipp Meierhöfer, Nicole Chevalier, Katarina Bradic, Eric Jurenas, Allan Clayton, Ezgi Kutlu, and Nora Friedrichs. View here for one month.
Christmas Oratorio. Ensemble Resonanz presents Bach s
Christmas Oratorio as Hausmusik among friends. With a small cast and no large choir, the ensemble has arranged 30 arias, recitatives, choruses, and chorales from Bach s masterpiece in its own version. The score remains untouched, but electric guitar and Hammond organ sound in the continuo, there’s only one trumpet, and the whole ensemble joins in the chorales. View here.
Delibes’s
Sylvia. Conductor: Kevin Rhodes, choreography: Manuel Legris after Louis Mérante. With Kiyoka Hashimoto, Masayu Kimoto, and Davide Dato. Production from November 2018. Register for free and view here.
2 pm ET: VOCES8 Live from London presents