Long one of the most-performed French operas Click here to purchase or try any track It was big news for lovers of French music when the Bard Music Festival announced that Berlioz was the composer (and remarkable music critic and memoirist) selected to be the central figure of the festival this summer. And that Le Prophète, the third of the four French Grand Operas by Giacomo Meyerbeer, a composer Berlioz greatly admired will be given a series of five performances (July 26-August 4) The Meyerbeer performances will be livestreamed, so for a mere $20 you can experience the work in the comfort of your home or car (but please keep your eyes on the road!) And the tagline that Bard is using about the opera is quite accurate: “Religion and manipulation collide in Meyerbeer’s Le Prophète!” (Coordinated with the Festival is the release of a book from the University of Chicago Press, Berlioz and His World with chapters touching on selected major works by Berlioz — such as La Damnation de Faust and Les Troyens — and also on Donizetti and other figures with whom Berlioz was in contact or against whom he measured himself a chapter dealing with the renowned pianist-composer Ferdinand Hiller and his uniquely important 80-page essay on his lifelong friend Berlioz — a text that we are translating entire for the first time for publication elsewhere.) though the secondary characters could have been assigned to better or more appropriate singers Meyerbeer’s stage works are skillfully crafted in their librettos (mostly by Eugène Scribe) and music alike They were rightly praised at the time for combining some of the best features of Italian music (captivating vocal lines that sometimes sprout coloratura passages) developmental treatment of themes and motives) and French music (varied and nuanced treatment of orchestral color not least by incorporating the latest advances in the construction of woodwind and brass instruments) Now we have this new recording of Meyerbeer’s third grand opera an amazing work that set the opera world ablaze in 1849 and that remained a staple in the repertory into the early 20th century Music lovers tend to know only a few numbers from it — most notably the Act 4 Coronation March and the four-movement ice-skating ballet (originally done on roller skates) But several solo numbers for Jean and for his mother Fidès are enormously compelling and memorable my favorite being the alternatingly desperate and energetic Act 5 soliloquy (in prison) in which Fidès denounces the Anabaptists as “priests of Baal” and exhorts Truth to strike Jean and force him to admit that he was born to her (and thus is not Elizabeth DeShong — a firmly voiced and persuasive Fidès the performance is in the highly experienced hands of Mark Elder the renowned English conductor who was musical director of English National Opera for 14 years Here he conducts one of the world’s great orchestras demonstrate conspicuous mastery and sensitivity in solo passages strewn throughout the work I have previously stayed away from “LSO Live” recordings because the acoustics tend to be generalized as if the microphones were too far away from the orchestra But here I was able to grasp all kinds of wonderful details in Meyerbeer’s skillful instrumental writing while also following the debates among the opera’s skillfully drawn and quite interesting characters: the demagogue Jean de Leyde (John of Leyden a historical character from the early 16th century but one who feels as disturbingly real as certain politicians on our TV screens) his long-suffering fiancée Berthe (who becomes either unhinged or a heroic terrorist the vicious ruler and womanizer Oberthal (another all-too-familiar type) who lure Jean into their conspiracy by making him believe that he is a kind of Christ reborn he ends up singing in an eerie half-voice: “Je suis le fils de Dieu.”) Moment after moment I understood why Le Prophète held the stage for so many decades and I felt its continuing resonance and relevance The main singers here put the work across fluently and convincingly. Elizabeth DeShong, whom I praised in Mercadante’s amazing Il proscritto the single most distinctive role in the opera (and a palpable influence on Verdi’s Azucena in Il Trovatore) Armenian-born and -trained lyric soprano Mané Galoyan (the Berthe here) is a new name to me: she and John Osborn both show a natural grasp of French style and an ability to shift smoothly from delicate to stentorian singing and back touching all kinds of gradations along the way are tossed off with exquisite ease (as are DeShong’s!) The secondary roles are handled capably but with less distinction. As the villain Oberthal, Edwin Crossley-Mercer, whom I described as “solid” but “prosaic” in Rameau in this heavily scored work from more than 100 years later as dramatically alert but vocally lightweight: in no way a match for the great Francophone actor-singer Jules Bastin on the Henry Lewis recording The three Anabaptists are likewise disappointing compared to the equivalent trio on the Lewis recording who were two native Francophones — Jean Dupouy and Christian Du Plessis — and the Met’s redoubtable basso Jerome Hines The Anabaptists should sound as if they have wandered in from a comic opera in order to then surprise the audience when the three become viciously disloyal to Jean we should enjoy the men’s larkiness and then feel the rug being pulled out from under us feel implicated in this opera’s complex and all-too-realistic moral morass Mark Elder and soloists in the concert version of Le Prophète at the Aix-en-Provence festival in 2023 Likewise clear and helpful are the briefer essays on the work But she sometimes slips: a “fanfare de saxhorns” becomes a “saxophone fanfare,” even though the French word “fanfare” (in the present context) means a group of brass instruments — not whereas saxophones are reed instruments that produce a sound wildly different from that of saxhorns The translator’s confusion presumably derives from the fact that all these instruments were named after the same maker But keeping facts straight is part of a translator’s responsibility she calls Jean a “visionary” — which sounds praiseworthy in English — when the essay-writer (Jardin) clearly means something like “a man trapped in delusions.” I am glad that the booklet offers it in both French and English (The Carella recording has it in French and German.) But I noticed far too many glaringly literal renderings in which a word that looks similar in English is automatically chosen such as (in the final scene) mention of “its ruin,” where “his ruin” — i.e. Jean’s imminent death — is clearly meant; or the galloping of “messengers” (whereas “coursiers” in 19th-century literary texts generally means horses or steeds — indeed nobody is carrying messages in this scene) “the pardon of God” sounds as if somebody is letting the Divinity off the hook one would speak straightforwardly of “God’s forgiveness.” Meyerbeer’s opera and this generally fine (-to-splendid) performance deserve better Surely there are underemployed college graduates in London who would have been able to translate Scribe’s French better than whatever machine (I suspect) was chosen for the task here an open-access source that includes contributions by performers (soprano Elly Ameling) as well as noted scholars (Robert M An altogether illuminating discussion of the work and the comparative merits of the various available recordings I hope Locke will be able to provide a review of the Bard production Δdocument.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value" The Lady’s Dressing Room (1732) BY JONATHAN SWIFT Five hours (and who can do it less in?) 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Site by AuthorBytes MASHPEE — Camp Farley has named its new executive director and she is a familiar face who had been serving as interim executive director has been appointed to the full-time position by the camp's board of directors Porro said this week she hopes to steer the camp back to its “former glory” and provide an environment for new and returning campers to unplug from their devices and experience the outdoors “In a day and age when people are always looking at their screens kids don’t have an opportunity to practice their social skills,” she said The board of directors appointed Porro as its interim director in April after its previous director was arrested in March 2017 on a charge of soliciting sex from undercover police Having already served at the head of the camp for nearly a year Porro said she’s identified programming areas that need improvement She said she’s spent a lot of time tweaking the camp’s food services and menu offerings Early on in her role in the interim position Porro decided to maintain a “strong relationship” with Joyce Oberthal She praised Oberthal for her tireless leadership over the years Porro had worked virtually every job at the camp She said previously that she planned to apply for the permanent executive director position when it became available Porro wrote about her experience attending the camp as a 12-year-old after the death of her father “Camp is a sort of magic for children and adolescents.” “I knew Camp Farley needed a leader with a vision who would honor all the best of Camp Farley while moving it forward,” she wrote Campbell admitted to sufficient facts to paying for sex and was placed on administrative supervision until Nov who served as the camp’s head while its board of directors searched for an interim executive director She said there has been some turnover on the board as a result of Campbell’s arrest and there are many new board members an environmental science high school teacher who's served 34 years in the U.S Lee said Porro was a natural choice to helm the camp Fallout from Campbell’s arrest caused the University of Massachusetts Amherst to terminate the camp’s 4-H designation which was issued through the college’s Center for Agriculture but the programming remains the same including horseback riding the use of nature as a classroom and a barnyard "We are fully committed to engaging and learning in the outdoors!" — Follow Tanner Stening on Twitter: @tsteningCCT In a one-of-a-kind, once-in-a-lifetime image, a German amateur astronomer captured not one, but two astronauts servicing the International Space Station during a spacewalk on March 23 He announced his achievement a few days later when he realized his image showed not just one ISS astronaut Visible in the image are astronauts Matthias Maurer, a German materials scientist who was on his first spacewalk, and Raja Chari, a test pilot and member of NASA Astronaut Group 22 Update: 2 Spacewalkers Imaged From The Ground — Dr. Sebastian Voltmer (@SeVoSpace) March 28, 2022 I released this version right away on the internet I continued to work on the final image version with both highlighted astronauts Already two days after the spacewalk happened He is a world well-known photographer of all things ISS and has been published in many forms of media noticed on my picture that NASA astronaut Raja Chari is also detectable on the robot arm Canadarm2 And he created a wonderful combination picture shown here with an insert from the NASA livestream I feel like I just made a once-in-a-lifetime image :) It’s probably the first ground-based picture showing two spacewalkers on the ISS at the same time The spacewalk was Maurer’s first, an excursion to prep the exterior of the ISS for the installation of a third set of retractable solar panels. Maurer described his role during the spacewalk for a video preview from the ESA: because I will be wandering the entire space station almost the airlock and on the tress close to the solar arrays I will be outside here of this Columbus Module on the very forward right edge of the space station then I will climb over to the bottom side of the Japanese module which is on the very forward left side of the space station and I am very excited and I am really looking forward to it NASA’s full stream of the spacewalk is available here Maurer wasn’t alone in looking forward to his foray. On the night of March 18, 2022, Voltmer imaged the ISS and shared a gif of the results on Instagram predicting the incredible results he would achieve the following week: Happy Birthday to ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer This video is my present for you (view & Cosmic Kiss song) I recently captured the video sequence through my telescope from your hometown I’m looking forward to take a pic of a man in space … of your spacewalk on Wednesday Let’s coordinate that to catch your waving at the right moment Cosmic Kiss is a song composed by Voltmer in honor of Maurer’s ISS mission In another image of the ISS taken the night of March 18, Voltmer described the amazing resolution he was able to achieve. Via Instagram: Currently I was able to take this images of the International Space Station (ISS) under best viewing conditions (seeing) captured from the hometown of the ESA astronaut Dr The resolution of the images shows details around 20 cm with which the current Crew-3 flew to the ISS A wave from Matthias is likely to be spotted 400 km above his hometown of Oberthal To capture the image of Maurer and Chari, Voltmer stacked images captured from video footage of the ISS flyover. A video of Voltmer imaging the ISS on March 18, 2022, then processing the video into a high-resolution image is available on his YouTube channel Voltmer’s images of the ISS were shot using an off-the-shelf 11-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope from Celestron Bottom line: German amateur astronomer Sebastian Voltmer was on the ground when he captured this image of 2 ISS astronauts – Matthias Maurer and Raja Chari – in space The 2 astronauts were working outside the International Space Station We invite you to visit our campaign page to discover why we need your contributions now more than ever to preview an illustration from Guy Ottewell’s great book that we're helping finalize and to learn more about EarthSky’s history “Things are always so much more peaceful when looking up.” We couldn’t agree more we apologize for the popup and greatly appreciate your support Sign In Subscribe Now Dialogue and debate are integral to a free society and we welcome and encourage you to share your views on the issues of the day. 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