Word: operas
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Returning to their British roots, TNP have referenced the Benjamin Britten opera “Peter Grimes” as an influence for their latest forray into musical experimentation. Fusing these operatic overtones with London electronica movements—dubstep and dancehall—Barnett has conceived an album which ricochets from ostentatious and oppressive climaxes to moments of melodic escapism. The result is a somewhat tiring journey, but it is a ride worth taking...
...songs can at times become rather unbearable. “Orion” is one of the most pompous tracks: soaring ensemble vocals lay over incessant drum beats, drowning out Barnett’s own simplistic vocal droning. The result is certainly powerful, reminiscent of the melodramas of opera, however in merging so many elements the song loses the beauty and resonance of its simplicity...
...Lowell House Opera (LHO) production of “Tosca,” stage directed by Michael A. Yashinsky ’11, with music direction by Channing Yu ’93, sets Giacomo Puccini’s famously bloody tragedy in Fascist Rome—a good choice, since the political connotations are undoubtedly clearer to contemporary audiences than those of Napoleonic Rome, its original setting...
...slight overemphasis on the setting can be forgiven in an opera where oftentimes the stakes are unclear or hard to sympathize with. The moral gravity of life under a totalitarian régime refashions Floria Tosca (Michelle Trainor) as a heroine of freedom in the face of oppression, rather than the intemperate diva she is frequently made out to be in other productions. Scarpia is no longer merely cruel; he is now a Fascist and a racist, and therefore triply loathsome...
Yashinsky’s setting recasts an opera about the heat of personal passion within the narrative mold of the resistance against totalitarianism, so what normally seems like petty caprice or wanton vindictiveness is instead inscribed with the utmost seriousness. Under Fascism, nothing seems like melodrama. This cast, most of whom are unaffiliated with Harvard, commands a presence in the Lowell Dining Hall that emphasizes this gravity...