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Limpid Clarity
'The Barber of Baghdad' by Peter Cornelius,
experienced by MIKE WHEELER
If Peter Cornelius (1824-74) is known to English-speaking audiences at all, it's most likely to be for The Three Kings, a choral adaptation of the third of his Christmas Songs, Op 8, and a popular favourite at carol services.
Composer, poet and translator, he was secretary and acolyte of, first, Liszt, then Wagner. It was his advocacy of their 'music of the future' that did for The Barber of Baghdad, the first of his three operas, when the Weimar première in 1858 was roundly booed by an anti-Liszt faction, at which Liszt, who conducted, angrily resigned as the dukedom's musical director...
Copyright © 19 July 2010
Mike Wheeler,
Derby UK
Further Buxton performances of The Barber of Baghdad by Peter Cornelius at Buxton take place on 19 and 24 July 2010. |
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