Anna Karenina, David Carlson's third opera, and the first to be professionally recorded, shows he is a natural composer of large-scale romantic grand opera; he has mastered the elusive art of giving the broad structure a musical coherence and logic. The through-composed opera is essentially post-Romantic in style, and the orchestration is especially inventive and varied. Carlson gratefully writes for the voice and knows how to show off his singers, but he sometimes falls into clichéd melodic patterns, lyrical, but more ...
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Anna Karenina, David Carlson's third opera, and the first to be professionally recorded, shows he is a natural composer of large-scale romantic grand opera; he has mastered the elusive art of giving the broad structure a musical coherence and logic. The through-composed opera is essentially post-Romantic in style, and the orchestration is especially inventive and varied. Carlson gratefully writes for the voice and knows how to show off his singers, but he sometimes falls into clichéd melodic patterns, lyrical, but more conventional than inspired. He does create believable, sympathetic characters, and in this he's hugely aided by Colin Graham's libretto, which manages to capture the essence of Tolstoy's sprawling original, distilling it while retaining enough particulars to give the narrative and the characters a rich and emotionally realistic texture, often a problem in operas derived from novels.The opera was commissioned by Florida Grand Opera and Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, and this recording is...
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