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  Wounded Angels: Glyndebourne revives Damiano Michieletto's antiseptic, symbolist staging of Kát'a Kabanová. Frankly, it doesn't do it for me as theatre, but it's wonderfully well sung. My review for the Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/aug/04/kata-kabanova-review-flawed-staging-janacek-opera-glyndebourne-sussex @classicalmusic #Janacek #KatyaKabanova #Glyndebourne

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  Percy Bysshe Shelley was born #OTD in 1792. Irmgard Seefried sings Il Tramonto, Respighi's great 1918 setting of The Sunset, with the Lucerne Festival Strings and Rudolf Baumgartner. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5QZWNTo-UY @classicalmusic #Respighi #PercyByssheShelley

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  Dmitry Shostakovich died #OTD fifty years ago, So here's his Sixth, my favourite of his symphonies. Rudolf Barshai conducts the WDR Symphony Orchestra, Cologne. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ryR1OHx34w @classicalmusic #Shostakovich

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  My Gramophone Magazine Collection piece on Debussy's and D'Annunzio's Le martyre de Saint Sébastien is now available online. I love this work, and have wanted to write about it in detail for decades, so this has been a total joy and a privilege to do! https://www.gramophone.co.uk/features/article/debussy-s-le-martyre-de-saint-sebastien-a-guide-to-the-greatest-recordings @classicalmusic #Debussy #Dannunzio

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  RIP Terence Stamp. A beautiful man and a wonderful actor, unforgettable in so many films. Loved him above all in Pasolini's Theorem: here's the trailer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCGVIg1ksYU #TerenceStamp

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  A live performance of Debussy and D'Annunzio's Le martyre de Saint Sébastien from Netherlands Radio in 1978, conducted by Jean Fournet, with Bernard Kruysen in the title role. 'Claude de France,' as D'Annunzio called Debussy, was born #OTD in 1862. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSCzYgoR0-w @classicalmusic #Debussy #Dannunzio

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  "Die Welt its tief, und tiefer als der Tag gedacht ......" Friedrich Nietzsche died #OTD in 1900. Lucretia West sings the setting of Zarathustra's Midnight Song from Mahler's Third Symphony with the Berlin Philharmonic and John Barbirolli. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aezr5Ul6N6g @classicalmusic #FriedrichNietzsche #Mahler

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  Still can't quite get over the thrill of seeing my Gramophone Collection piece on Debussy's Le martyre de Saint Sébastien in print. @classicalmusic #Debussy

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  Giacomo Meyerbeer was born #OTD in 1791. Marilyn Horne sings O Prêtres de Ball from Le Prophète, in a radio broadcast from Turin in 1970 conducted by Henry Lewis. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5V5DrJgWnMM @classicalmusic #Meyerbeer

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  Richard Strauss died #OTD in 1949. Nicolai Gedda sings Befreit with Gerald Moore at the piano in 1966. Among the most beautiful songs ever written. And what a great, great singer Gedda was. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_14Rf09VWU&list=RDj_14Rf09VWU&start_radio=1 @classicalmusic #RichardStrauss #Gedda

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  Henry Purcell was (possibly) born #OTD in 1659. So here's David Pountney's 1995 ENO production of The Fairy Queen, conducted by Nicholas Kok, with Yvonne Kenny and Tom Randle heading a fabulous cast. It was deemed controversial in its day, but I loved it and still do. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7zk4aZsVWI @classicalmusic #Purcell #FairyQueen

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  Rameau died #OTD in 1764. So here is Tendre amour from Les Indes galantes, one of the most wonderful, beautiful things in all music. William Christie conducts Les Arts Florissants. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kzi8sL9P2ko @classicalmusic #jean_philippe_rameau

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  Dante died in Ravenna #OTD in 1321. So let us listen to Louis Kentner playing Liszt's Dante Sonata. Its original title, Après une lecture de Dante, derives from a poem of the same name by Victor Hugo, that opens with the words "Quand le poète peint l'enfer, it peint sa vie." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzN54775VRg #Dante #Liszt

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  Maria Callas singing Tu che invoco con orrore from Spontini's La Vestale in Hamburg in 1959, with the NDR Sinfonieorchester and Nicola Rescigno. To mark the anniversary of her death #OTD in 1977 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpwnhTuKGe0 #MariaCallas #Spontini #Vestale

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  Dmitri Shostakovich was born #OTD in 1906. So here's the 1966 Soviet film of Katerina Izmailova (his 1962 revision of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk), directed by Mikahil Shapiro, conducted by Konstantin Simeonov, and with a towering performance by Galina Vishnevskaya in the title role. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7A6K2BeCMz0 #Shostakovich #KaterinaIzmailova #LadyMacbeth #GalinaVishnevskaya

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  The great Maria Jeritza, creator of Strauss's Ariadne and Empress, of Korngold's Marietta, and dedicatee of Strauss's last song, Malven, was born in Brno #OTD in 1887. So here is some rare footage - from her only film, Großfürstin Alexandra (1933) - of her singing Pace, pace, mio Dio from Verdi's La forza del destino, at the Vienna Staatsoper https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82n-0-8IGHU #Jeritza #Verdi #Strauss #Korngold

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  Wagner's Tannhäuser was first performed in Dresden #OTD in 1845. This is one of its great performances, a 1939 broadcast from the Met, conducted by Erich Leinsdorf, with Kirsten Flagstad, Rose Pauly, Eyvind Laholm, Herbert Janssen and Emmanuel List. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sZrHniLL2I #Wagner #Tannhäuser

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  A creepy story's best for Halloween 🎃 This is Nino Oxilia's wonderful 1917 film Rapsodia Satanica, which reimagines the Faust legend with the protagonist as a woman. The score is by Mascagni, his only work for film. For some reason, the music doesn't start until seven or so minutes into the movie. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRdDpb9lGCM #Halloween #NinoOxilia #Mascagni

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  Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf was born #OTD in 1739. Here's the Sixth (Fifth in some orderings) of his wonderful Symphonies after Ovid's Metamorphoses, The Lycian Peasants Transformed into Frogs. Bohumil Gregor conducts the Prague Chamber Orchestra. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7VNrxs4s3U #Dittersdorf #Ovid #Frogs

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  Charles Styles singing Der Doppelgänger from Schubert's Schwanengesang https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwdKrw78suU