Posts Categorized: 2011 Season

A blast from the Wolf-Ferrari past, with Arturo Toscanini conducting the NBC Symphony Orchestra* in 1947: *The NBC Symphony Orchestra was established especially for conductor Arturo Toscanini, and it performed weekly radio concert broadcasts from 1937 till 1954. A few words from Samuel Chotzinoff, NBC music chief during those years: “A medium already existed that

Sketches for the eponymous curious women and the gentlemen who frequent the men’s club. Courtesy Camille Assaf, costume designer. Click through to our Flickr photostream to see all the costume sketches for The Curious Women.

A guest post by Gary Wedow, conductor of Le donne curiose: For a very short period of time before the outbreak of WWI the operas of Wolf-Ferrari were among the most popular and most performed in the world, championed by Verdi and Boito; the Metropolitan Opera premiere of Le donne curiose was conducted by Toscanini

It’s probably not a surprise that the printed music for a rare opera is just a touch hard to read… Actually, the string books are in pretty good shape, but the wind parts… well, let’s just say that conductor Gary Thor Wedow is keeping a positive outlook by reminding himself that it’s possible that these

Digging into an opera that hasn’t been produced in this country for 99 years is a fascinating, somewhat masochistic way to spend one’s time. But every day, this charming little-known piece is coming more and more into focus. Today brings a dilemma in fine-tuning the synopsis: What does one call this charming place where the