Thursday, May 7, 2009

Magdalena in Paris


An exciting revival in Paris of the 1948 musical Magdalena begins later this month this time next year (May 18-22, 2010). This music certainly deserves a wider audience.

I guess the work has fared pretty well over the years. Previous runs were in Germany in 1999, and Oregon in 2000, along with the famous revivals in Ohio in 1992 and the Centennial performance at Alice Tully Hall in New York in 1987. Luckily the 1989 Boston performance with Orchestra New England was recorded; you can still track it down from used CD vendors.

Thanks to Affonso Risi Jr. for the head's-up on this.

3 comments:

  1. I forgot the one performance I would most like to have attended (after the October 4, 1948 premiere at the Ziegfeld Theater): at the Amazonas Opera House in Manaus in 2003.

    http://villa-lobos.blogspot.com/2003_03_01_villa-lobos_archive.html

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  2. Man... sometimes I can't take my own people, we Brazilians... HOW CAN IT BE that none of us makes anything of the quality YOU are doing, about Villa-Lobos? Thank you, than you so much!!

    I have just found and downloaded the 1988 Magdalena's recording, and was ready to listen to a minor, perhaps funny work. What a surprise! How can it be that we do not pay attention to SUCH productions of our own people??

    Well, at least it seems we do not have exclusiveness in stupidity. Did you see the NYT 1987 note on Magdalena's revival? With no chauvinism at all... how utterly STUPID it proves, if you actually listen to the music and compare it to so many more famous Broadway productions!

    Well, the most important thing: THANK YOU once more - and thank you, and thank you!!

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  3. P.S.: oh, I forgot, in case you did NOT see the stupid NYT critics, it's at http://www.nytimes.com/1987/11/25/theater/concert-villa-lobos-s-magdalena.html

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