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Title: Stanford's 'The Veiled Prophet' on Rte Lyric FM Post by: patmos.beje on November 09, 2019, 10:16:45 pm The 2019 Wexford Festival's concert performance of Stanford's first opera The Veiled Prophet can be heard on Rte Lyric Fm - Opera Night with Paul Herriott. The listen back link is: https://www.rte.ie/lyricfm/opera-night// Title: Re: Stanford's 'The Veiled Prophet' on Rte Lyric FM Post by: Albion on November 21, 2019, 04:21:12 pm This is one of my discoveries of the year - what a super piece! Act two in particular is full of the most attractive writing with many beautiful passages. Stanford could write operas, of that I have no doubt, but as a first attempt this is something special. A bit of Wagner here, a bit of Meyerbeer there, quite frankly I don't care given the result. Critics get hung up on "influences" in a pejorative sense simply to show some knowledge, however shallow. I think this performance benefits greatly from using the original libretto in English rather than translations in German (1881) and Italian (1893).
:) Title: Re: Stanford's 'The Veiled Prophet' on Rte Lyric FM Post by: jimfin on November 26, 2019, 12:18:19 pm It's quite wonderful, isn't it? I reckon it knocks socks off "Fantasia" (which I haven't heard) or even "Irmelin". And having also now heard his last opera, I'm greedy for more. The extracts from Much Ado I've heard are impressive; I think The Critic would be a real treat.
Title: Re: Stanford's 'The Veiled Prophet' on Rte Lyric FM Post by: jimfin on November 28, 2019, 08:38:55 am Is it just me or does the theme for "to Allah be praise" have a slightly Irish jig feel? The way it's used in the Prelude reminds me quite a lot of the Irish Symphony! |