Naxos Blog » Gerald Finley

Podcast: Gerald Finley sings Great Opera Arias

Raymond — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:00:24 +0000

An interview with baritone Gerald Finley about his new Chandos CD titled Great Opera Arias. This CD includes arias from two roles he helped create as the first person to sing the lead roles: Robert Oppenheimer in John Adams‘ Dr. Atomic, and Harry in Mark Anthony Turnage’s The Silver Tassie. Other composers featured on this disc include Tchaikowsky, Weber, Verdi, Bizet, Puccini, Donezetti, Wagner and Mozart. In this recording, Gerald Finley is accompanied by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Edward Gardner.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Chandos CHAN 3167

Subscribe to Podcast: Enhanced* | Regular | iTunes Store
Download this Episode: AAC* | MP3

* enhanced version of the podcast contains chapter markers and cover art.

About Raymond Bisha

Podcast: Elgar’s Crown of India

Raymond — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 16:00:02 +0000

Sir Edward Elgar wrote his Crown of India for a 1912 musical event in London celebrating the coronation of King George V and Queen Mary as Emperor and Empress of India. Although such an event is an historical anachronism today, the music Sir Edward was not. The orchestral suite from this work is one of his most performed pieces. This podcast looks at a new recording of both versions – the full version with narration, and the orchestral suite – with the BBC Philharmonic, Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus, and singers Clare Shearer and Gerald Finley, all conducted by Sir Andrew Davis.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Chandos CHAN 10570

Subscribe to Podcast: Enhanced* | Regular | iTunes Store
Download this Episode: AAC* | MP3

* enhanced version of the podcast contains chapter markers and cover art.

About Raymond Bisha

On September 30, Opus Arte releases the much-anticipated DVD of John Adams’ Doctor Atomic

Kelly — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 19:44:50 +0000

Directed by Peter Sellars and recorded live at Het Muziektheater in Amsterdam in June 2007, the superb cast includes baritone Gerald Finley as J. Robert Oppenheimer and soprano Jessica Rivera as Kitty Oppenheimer.

“Doctor Atomic came across as the most complex and inventive of Mr. Adams’s works, an engrossing operatic drama, even though very little happens. Yet by the end the entire world has changed forever.”
-Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times

On September 30, Opus Arte releases John Adams’ Doctor Atomic (OA0998D), in a production from the Het Musietheater in Amsterdam in June 2007. Directed for television by its librettist/director and Erasmus Prize-winner Peter Sellars, Doctor Atomic is John Adams’ and Peter Sellars’ fifth work in almost 20 years of artistic collaboration.

Doctor Atomic features a superb cast, including Canadian baritone Gerald Finley, who created the role and has made it his signature. The luminous soprano Jessica Rivera performs the role of Kitty Oppenheimer, a part originally conceived for the late mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson. For the Chicago Lyric production, Adams rewrote the role for soprano, adding additional music. Anthony Tommasini called Ms. Rivera, “a radiant lyric soprano … in a vulnerable and intense portrayal.” Other cast members include Eric Owens, Richard Paul Fink, James Maddalena, Thomas Glenn, Jay Hunter Morris, and Ellen Rabiner.

Doctor Atomic received its world premiere at the San Francisco Opera on October 1, 2005. In December 2007, the Lyric Opera of Chicago produced the opera in a revised version. Doctor Atomic will enjoy its fourth production at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, opening on Monday, October 13, 2008 at 8 PM.