Sibelius, Mozart, Vivaldi, & Blitzstein

This week and last week feature a pretty good variety of music which received quite a bit of media attention over the weekend.

Last weekend’s performance, Mozart’s Grand Piano Concerto, was praised by Catherine Reese Newton in the Tribune, but slammed by Ed Reichel of the Deseret News. I always find it interesting how two people, even two experts, can attend the same performance and come away with completly opposite impressions. What one describes as “an impressive command of musical coloration” another describes as “overdone and overblown.” I guess, as with critics of anything, you have to be there to make the decision for yourself. There were a few bloggers out there who reviewed it also, and they both loved the performance.

The Deseret News also previewed our two upcoming performances, The Four Seasons on Thursday and Regina, which opens on Saturday. I’m excited for both of these, but especially for Regina. I recently watched the movie The Little Foxes (you can see the whole thing on YouTube – not that I approve of uploading movies to the internet, but it’s there) and got really excited about the performance. Deanne Meek has a high bar to live up to – the performance of Regina by Bette Davis is chilling – but I’ve peeked in on some of the rehearsals and am convinced that Opera News was spot on when they said “Deanne Meek in the title role of Marc Blitzstein’s Regina at Utah Opera has the potential to be a singular sensation.” I also think the story about “corporate greed” is timely, given what we’re going through with this crazy ecomony.