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The Witches of Venice

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Riesman, Michael (Artist) Format: Audio CD
4.8 4.8 out of 5 stars 11 ratings
$14.99
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Track Listings

1 The Lagoon
2 The Philosophers Have Arrived
3 No Solution
4 The Fairies
5 Life Is Hard
6 I'm Not a Fool
7 The Plant-Boy's Song
8 The Witches Rush in
9 The Wind Blows
10 The Witches Palace
11 Inside the Palace
12 Ghosts and Skeletons!
13 The Ogre
14 Ogre's Song
15 Plant-Boy Flees
16 Dance of the Witches
17 Witch Mother
18 Gondolas Bringing Guests
19 Away, Pigeon, Away!
20 Plant-Boy's Tears
21 In the Chandelier
22 Glorious Escape!
23 A Happy Ending
24 Life Is Hard, a Good Red Wine

Product details

  • Is Discontinued By Manufacturer ‏ : ‎ No
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Product Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 4.9 x 5.56 x 0.38 inches; 3.84 ounces
  • Manufacturer ‏ : ‎ ORANGE MOUNTAIN
  • Original Release Date ‏ : ‎ 2006
  • SPARS Code ‏ : ‎ DDD
  • Date First Available ‏ : ‎ February 17, 2007
  • Label ‏ : ‎ ORANGE MOUNTAIN
  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B000JBWWHO
  • Number of discs ‏ : ‎ 1
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.8 4.8 out of 5 stars 11 ratings

Customer reviews

4.8 out of 5 stars
4.8 out of 5
11 global ratings
Book in English includes libretto in English and Italian. Audio CD is performed in Italian.
5 Stars
Book in English includes libretto in English and Italian. Audio CD is performed in Italian.
A delightful fairy tale opera by Philip Glass and Beni Montresor!I was confused by the product description that said the product was in English because the Audio CD of the opera in this package was recorded in Italian. The book is beautiful. The story around the opera is written in English and then the libretto has the lines in English and Italian side by side so it is easy to follow the story. See photos for an example of the libretto in the book.This opera by Glass was fun and interesting. I know it is performed in English by various opera companies but has not been recorded in English as far as I could find. This is the only recording listed on Philip Glass's web site.Commissioned by La Scala Opera House. PREMIERE: December 12, 1995 in Milan. This audio recording was made at Looking Glass studios and released in 2006.
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Top reviews from the United States

mmg
5.0 out of 5 stars Book in English includes libretto in English and Italian. Audio CD is performed in Italian.
Reviewed in the United States on January 7, 2022
Verified Purchase
A delightful fairy tale opera by Philip Glass and Beni Montresor!

I was confused by the product description that said the product was in English because the Audio CD of the opera in this package was recorded in Italian. The book is beautiful. The story around the opera is written in English and then the libretto has the lines in English and Italian side by side so it is easy to follow the story. See photos for an example of the libretto in the book.

This opera by Glass was fun and interesting. I know it is performed in English by various opera companies but has not been recorded in English as far as I could find. This is the only recording listed on Philip Glass's web site.

Commissioned by La Scala Opera House. PREMIERE: December 12, 1995 in Milan. This audio recording was made at Looking Glass studios and released in 2006.
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mmg
5.0 out of 5 stars Book in English includes libretto in English and Italian. Audio CD is performed in Italian.
Reviewed in the United States on January 7, 2022
A delightful fairy tale opera by Philip Glass and Beni Montresor!

I was confused by the product description that said the product was in English because the Audio CD of the opera in this package was recorded in Italian. The book is beautiful. The story around the opera is written in English and then the libretto has the lines in English and Italian side by side so it is easy to follow the story. See photos for an example of the libretto in the book.

This opera by Glass was fun and interesting. I know it is performed in English by various opera companies but has not been recorded in English as far as I could find. This is the only recording listed on Philip Glass's web site.

Commissioned by La Scala Opera House. PREMIERE: December 12, 1995 in Milan. This audio recording was made at Looking Glass studios and released in 2006.
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LJC
5.0 out of 5 stars Fun for All Ages
Reviewed in the United States on October 12, 2012
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I've listened to A LOT of music by Philip Glass, but I'd never even heard of "The Witches of Venice," so I gave it a try. From the very beginning, you know you're not in Kansas anymore: water laps and gurgles mysteriously, soon joined by the eerie sounds of wind whooshing . . . and female voices cackling . . . then witchy laughter gives way to jauntily bombastic music that has nothing to do with the typical repetitive structures of any kind of minimalism. Glass is on vacation! This work is like a mini-opera of a children's fable by Beni Montresor that brings you plant-children, a heartless king and sad-eyed queen, fairies, a lugubrious ogre, fatuous wise men, and of course those witches, all swirling around in a love story of fantasy and adventure. But it's the MUSIC that delights, with fresh, delightful inventiveness at every turn. Kids should love it, and although I'm on Medicare, I can tell you that I would have loved it at any age, and I'm just glad I finally found "The Witches of Venice"! The music is witty, hilarious, touching, and lovely. What's not to like?
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greg leong
5.0 out of 5 stars Great rare item
Reviewed in the United States on August 16, 2013
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The item arrived promptly in excellent condition and it is great music by one of the world's great contemporary composers. Fantastically illustrated.
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R. Guerin
5.0 out of 5 stars NY Times Review "Philip Glass Casts New Spells, Including One for Children" 11/27/06
Reviewed in the United States on November 27, 2006
BOUTIQUE labels run by composers and performers are supposed to be the hot new thing, but Philip Glass took charge of his own recordings in the early 1970s, when he began releasing his ensemble's performances on his own Chatham Square label. Mr. Glass has always been savvy about sound: his audio engineer, Kurt Munkacsi, has been a member of the Philip Glass Ensemble since the early days. Both Mr. Glass and Mr. Munkacsi have overseen most of Mr. Glass's recordings, even those released by other labels. And they have usually maintained control of the master tapes.

Not long ago, Mr. Munkacsi set out to archive Mr. Glass's tape library, which includes not only the studio masters but stacks of concert recordings as well. And the archiving project led to the next logical step: Orange Mountain Music, a label through which Mr. Glass could release new recordings and reissue old ones, as well as lending his spotlight to composers and ensembles he admires, as he did on Point Music, his boutique label for Universal. Lately, the Glass factory has been spinning out recordings every few weeks, both on CD and in compilations available only through iTunes.

The gem in the most recent batch is "The Witches of Venice," a zesty children's opera-ballet, set to a libretto by Beni Montresor and packaged in a CD-size hardcover book. The piece is about a boy who was born from a magic flower and lived with the king and queen of Venice before flying off on a wooden pigeon to rescue a girl of similar provenance from a group of witches.

The work has slipped under the radar of much of Mr. Glass's adult audience, and it is surprising and uncharacteristic. Its 24 movements are brief, and Mr. Glass's energetically rhythmic, repetitive thumbprints are everywhere; but so are sound effects that point up the magical aspects of the story, and stretches of dramatic, colorful scoring that is not immediately identifiable as Mr. Glass's. Who would have thought, back in the days of "Einstein on the Beach," with its embrace of nonnarrative theater, that Mr. Glass would someday offer vivid musical portraits of witches, fairies, ogres and a magical Plant-Boy?

Many of Mr. Glass's works are about discovery, sometimes spiritual ("Akhnaten") or scientific ("The Light") but often geographical, with social underpinnings. In "The Voyage" (two CDs), written for the Metropolitan Opera in 1992, the subject is Columbus, with a parallel plot about space travelers crashing on Earth. Where "The Witches of Venice" paints pictures with music, "The Voyage," like many of Mr. Glass's full-scale operas, is a grandly ritualistic spectacle in which staging is a crucial element, with the music often simply chugging along in support.

The ideal format for many of these works is DVD. Still, Dennis Russell Davies, leading the Bruckner Orchestra Linz and soloists and chorus from the Landestheater Linz, draws a solid, sometimes weighty reading that captures the monumental qualities one heard in the Met production.

"The Concerto Project, Volume 2" includes another installment in the discovery series, the Piano Concerto No. 2, "After Lewis and Clark." This 2004 score is built on an odd hybrid of Mr. Glass's ostinatos, Lisztian thunder (supplied with deft fluidity by Paul Barnes, the pianist) and an evocation of American Indian music. Some of the Indian themes have the feel of 19th-century salon music, but they work best in an attractive central movement dominated by R. Carlos Nakai's wooden flute.

The companion work is the Concerto for Harpsichord and Orchestra (2001), a Baroque-gone-haywire score in which 18th-century figurations and ornaments morph into (and sometimes escape) Mr. Glass's signature repeating cells. Jillon Stoppels Dupree, the harpsichordist, does a superb job of moving between the two worlds. (Ralf Gothoni conducts the Northwest Chamber Orchestra in both works.)

Also not to be missed is "Analog," which includes a vividly remixed version of "North Star" (1977), one of Mr. Glass's early Virgin recordings. Unlike most of his works of the time, this film score is built of short works that develop comparatively quickly. Joining it here are "Dressed Like an Egg" (1977) and an organ solo, "Mad Rush" (1980), previously available only in a limited edition given away as a subscription bonus for the long-defunct SoHo Weekly News.
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E. Winkler
5.0 out of 5 stars ein besonderer Glass
Reviewed in Germany on January 25, 2016
Verified Purchase
Es ist ein Glass, den man erkennt und doch ist die Art der Musik ganz anders, teilweise sogar etwas verstörend, aber schlussendlich mit Zuhilfenahme des Booklets wird die ganze Sache schlüssig und nachvollziehbar. Den Hexen würde ich jedenfalls nicht begegnen wollen. Für Glass-Fans ein Muss und für die anderen eine interessante Erfahrung.
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patacake
5.0 out of 5 stars spine tingling
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 3, 2010
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I'd never heard this before and took a chance on it as a birthday present for my husband. A good choice! Fans of PG's music will not be disappointed.
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