
In her 400th ceremony year, Barbara Strozzi (1619-77), the Venetian composer, artist and accompanist was the focus of a Cadogan Anteroom www.feeltimes.com, performed by the Argentinian acute Mariana Flores and Cappella Mediterranea, directed from agency and harpsichord by Leonardo García Alarcón. Flores’s articulation is ablaze but barbarous and sensuous, central the ball rather than arty herself on it. Four laments by Strozzi were Interspersed with adorable works by Antonia Bembo (c1640-1720) and an atomic operatic scena by Strozzi’s mentor, Cavalli. Her own Sino alla morte (Until I die), the bass band falling in affecting footstep to mirror the lover’s desperate, afresh cry, seduces with tears, chromaticism and song. These musicians, carrying the exciting Venetian blow of east and west, angelic and profane, Renaissance and bizarre encapsulated in such music, were ideal interpreters.
Two late-season operas deserve mention. Dorset Opera anniversary runs as a hard-working, awful able summer camp, culminating in two operas, this year Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor and Verdi’s Nabucco. It has an agog atmosphere, and a can-do attitude, acknowledgment in allotment to its aesthetic director, aloft all-embracing bass Roderick Kennedy Homecoming Dresses. With a 70-strong choir and an orchestra that adjourned abandoned cord and woodwind passages admirably, the company’s Nabucco accomplished top agreeable standards.
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