Manuel de Falla's two-act burst of passionate tragedy La vida breve is often excerpted orchestrally but less often performed or recorded in full. Within its 80-plus minutes of music, the opera weaves together an impressive variety of material, putting it all in service of a swiftly moving, tragic love story. The grim drama comes from Italian verismo, the colorful orchestra from Falla's contact with French impressionism, and the foot-tapping flamenco rhythms from Falla's own key explorations of Spanish national styles, ...
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Manuel de Falla's two-act burst of passionate tragedy La vida breve is often excerpted orchestrally but less often performed or recorded in full. Within its 80-plus minutes of music, the opera weaves together an impressive variety of material, putting it all in service of a swiftly moving, tragic love story. The grim drama comes from Italian verismo, the colorful orchestra from Falla's contact with French impressionism, and the foot-tapping flamenco rhythms from Falla's own key explorations of Spanish national styles, buttressed by a good deal of Andalusian dialect in the libretto. Spanish conductor Juanjo Mena, in a labor of love before his departure from the BBC Philharmonic, scores well in the French and Spanish departments but less so in the Italian. His flamenco scenes in the festive portions of the second act have plenty of menacing zip, and the Philharmonic, well-versed in live performances of the opera, gets all the instrumental colors. The only thing missing is riveting singing. There's...
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