Alexa Goes For Hell's Revenge In New Commercial From Amazon

Alexa, Amazon's virtual assistant that uses artificial intelligence technology, is activated by voice interaction to control music playback, making to-do lists, setting alarms, streaming podcasts, playing audiobooks, and providing weather, traffic, sports, and other real-time information, such as news. In their latest television commercial, they tap one of Mozart's most famous arias from Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) sung by the Königin der Nacht (Queen of the Night): "Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen." Known as the "Vengeance Aria," it is wickedly high and hard to sing. The promo is pushing customers to create playlists with Summer Vibes. The client trying to relax interrupts the performance to request "something more fun" which quickly transforms the scene to Donna Summer singing "I Feel Love." Watch the full Amazon commercial, a performance of Edda Moser singing the complete aria, a video of Donna Summer, and check out the lyrics with translations for the aria after the jump. [Source, Source]

Sabine Devieilhe Follows The Love Mozart Had For Weber Sisters

Mozart was in love with three sisters of the Weber family: Josepha, Aloysia and Konstanze. He wrote music for all of the muses (and their high tessituras) during the last 14 years of his life. This new recording, Sabine Devieilhe's second solo disc for Erato, features conductor Raphaël Pichon and Pygmalion creating a journey of Mozart's amorous awaking for these women as told through music that is bold, dangerous, naive and tormented. Some of the featured tracks include: "Der Hölle Rache" from Die Zauberflöte; "Non so d'onde viene" K.294; "Io non chiedo, eterni Dei" K.316; "Nehmt meinen Dank" KV 483; "Ah, vous dirais-je maman"; and more. Due out November 6, you can pre-order this limited edition disc by clicking here. Watch a video of the recording session after the jump.

Joseph Colaneri And Francesca Zambello Talk 40th Anniversary

Opera Titan: Francesco Zambello leads the
Glimmerglass Festival into its 40th Season.
(Photo: Claire McAdams)

"The Glimmerglass Festival this year seems grander than ever before. The opera company, with its Alice Busch Theater and campus on the western shore of Otsego Lake north of Cooperstown, is celebrating its 40th anniversary. Artistic and general director Francesca Zambello has put together a remarkable season of events and activities, running from July 10 through August 23. Scheduled for the opening and closing performances is the familiar and beloved Mozart masterpiece, The Magic Flute. Other mainstage productions are Verdi’s dark tragedy Macbeth and an amazing unknown opera by Antonio Vivaldi, Cato in Utica. The traditional American musical theater offering is Leonard Bernstein’s witty and clever take on Voltaire’s classic short novel, Candide. Voltaire ends his philosophical reflection on the meaning of life with Candide’s words, 'we must cultivate our garden.' This year the Glimmerglass 'campus' will have a three-part modern landscape installation for sharing stories and quiet person reflection. 'A beautiful garden has both unity and variety,' Zambello says, and the golden thread running through this season is the importance and beauty of our natural surroundings....The festival will also present a lecture by Supreme Court Justice Ruth

Mozart Lends Music For 2015 Turbo Tax Season

"It’s not always easy, but love finds a way. No matter what you went through last year, answering questions about it is simple. Get your taxes done right with TurboTax." The tax company uses "Bei Männern, welche Liebe fühlen" from Mozart's Die Zauberflöte. Watch Lucia Popp (Pamina) and Wolfgang Brendel (Papageno) perform the piece on stage under conductor Wolfgang Sawallisch.

Operatic Connections Run Deep For "The Strain" On FX Networks

More menacing than Vincent Price: Jonathan Hyde
as Stoneheart Group CEO Eldritch Palmer. But
where did this character get his name?

"The Strain is an American vampire horror–drama television series that premiered on FX on July 13, 2014. It was created by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan, based on their novel trilogy of the same name. Del Toro and Hogan wrote the pilot episode, 'Night Zero,' which del Toro directed. A thirteen-episode first season was ordered on November 19, 2013. The pilot episode premiered at the ATX Television Festival in Austin, Texas, in early June 2014....On August 6, 2014, FX renewed The Strain for a 13-episode second season, with production set to begin in November 2014." [Source] The only way to make a television series about vampires and the holocaust more dramatic, is to score it with hints of opera and classical music. The show has thrown brief sound clips into scenes specific to two characters: Eldritch Palmer and Thomas Eichorst.

One German-composer-loving Nazi vampire:
Richard Sammel as Thomas Eichorst

The composers approved by the Nazi regime during WWII (a theme used heavily in the show) were Ludwig van Beethoven, Richard Wagner, and Anton Bruckner. So far, we've gotten some Beethoven and Viennese composer Mozart in the first nine episodes. It will come as no surprise if the other Germanic composers make an appearance later in the series. Beyond the music clips, there are many other real-life opera connections to the lead actor in the show and his character's name as well. Read all about the opera connections surrounding the series, and listen to music presented in the show, after the jump.  The Strain airs Sunday nights at 10:00 PM ET/PT, only on FX. Watch the full episodes of The Strain by clicking here. [Source, Source]

Verizon Droid Uses Mozart's Königin Der Nacht In Advertisement

"Der Hölle Rache" from Mozart's Die Zauberflöte sung by Königin der Nacht.

Barrie Kosky Magic Flute Makes Big Splash At LA Opera

"A celebration of true love conquering all, The Magic Flute transports us into an enchanted world where good faces the forces of darkness. Under the masterful baton of James Conlon, LA Opera presents the U.S. Production Premiere of a highly inventive staging that originated at the Komische Oper Berlin, created by director Barrie Kosky in combination with the British theater group '1927,' whose humorous shows have thrilled audiences all over the world with their interaction between film animation and live-performing actors: 'A perfect mixture of all the things worth loving: silent films, the cabaret of the Weimar Republic, David Lynch, and the brothers Grimm (The Guardian, UK).' Packed with exquisite singing and stage wizardry, Mozart's delightful blend of high comedy and serious drama enchants young and old alike." This is a co-production with Minnesota Opera, where it will be performed in April. Read the New York Times review by clicking here and check out a large photo gallery of the production here. The complete LA Opera cast list is after the jump.

Daphne Guinness Discusses Her Love (and Hate) of Opera

PETER BRANT II: I’m musically challenged. I love music, but I can’t play . . . When I was little, I wanted to be a child prodigy, but I was awful at the piano.
DAPHNE GUINNESS: I had an accident with my right hand, so I stopped playing. It had to do with a lawn mower. Can you imagine? I’ve still got scars. I’m almost ambidextrous as well. So I’ve always had this kind of left hand-right hand problem anyway, but my writing on this hand is almost calligraphical now. I don’t know why, because I didn’t ever learn it. My hands kind of work separately. But singing was always very, very, very easy for me. I know in the last few months it doesn’t look like I’m afraid of putting myself out there, but I also have terrible nerves. I don’t think I’m going to be performing any time soon, but I might join a choir.
PETER BRANT II: Really?
DAPHNE GUINNESS: Yeah. It would be kind of fun. I always wanted to join the choir up in Harlem. They really know how to sing! That’s really great. I like certain operas. I’m not very keen on Puccini. If I have to see another La Bohème, I’m going to shoot myself. I mean, really. There are certain ones I love like the Ring [cycle], and I love Tristan und Isolde. I love Parsifal. I love Il Trovatore. I love all the Mozart operas. The Magic Flute bothers me because I just don’t like it when there’s no recitative. They start talking in the middle. I don’t like musicals for the same reason. Because when someone suddenly bursts into song in the middle of a sentence, you just think, That’s weird. But I like it when the whole thing is sung.
PETER BRANT II: I love The Marriage of Figaro.
DAPHNE GUINNESS: I can sing that from beginning to end And the Overture . . .

After the jump, an excerpt of Ms. Guinness singing "L'ho perduta, me meschina" from Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro. [Source]

Julie Taymor's "Magic Flute" Down Under With Australian Opera

"Julie Taymor's renowned and fanciful production of The Magic Flute, which originated late in 2006 at the Metropolitan Opera New York, arrived triumphantly at the Sydney Opera House on January 6. Impressively reconstructed locally and directed by Matthew Barclay, it inaugurated a Mozart-intensive Opera Australia summer holiday season. While this Flute is memorable for its innovative good humour and often cartoonish design touches, its premiere under the baton of Jonathan Darlington was only very intermittently anything like as impressive musically. Its vocal apex was Emma Pearson’s pretty well impeccable assault on the Queen of the Night’s second aria. Andrew Brunsdon’s Tamino improved as the evening wore on. Andrew Jones never quite managed to creep convincingly inside Papageno’s happy-go-lucky shoes, but David Parkin was a reasonably sonorous Sarastro and Nicole Car a pleasing Pamina. This is the abridged family version of Taymor’s production, so it is odd that only two of the 28 performances will be matinees." [Source]

Woody Allen Samples Mozart and Prokofiev in "Love and Death"

The 1975 Woody Allen classic, Love and Death, features Mozart's overture from Die Zauberflöte playing during a scene at the opera. The film also makes heavy use of  "Plescheyevo Lake" from Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky.

A Pyromaniacal Laura Dern Channels Königin der Nacht

From the season finale (part 1) of HBO's hit new show Englightened, the lead character Amy, played by Laura Dern, has just tapped into her company's mainframe email system (she's not happy at her job...) when a fantasy dream sequence begins underscored by "Der Hölle Rache" (Hell's Vengeance) from Mozart's Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) sung by the Königin der Nacht (Queen of the Night).

From the Vault: 1978 "La Flûte Enchantée" With Alain Lombard

The French label Barclay was purchased by Erato Records and in the late 1970s Alain Lombard teamed up with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg for a series of recordings that included this gem, along with Così fan tutte (Kiri Te Kanawa, Frederica von Stade, Teresa Stratas, David Rendall, Jules Bastine) and Faust (Montserrat Caballé, Giacomo Aragall, Paul Plishka). Now owned by Warner, the below issue has never made it to CD or MP3 format.

Mozart: La Flûte Enchantée [Die Zauberflöte]
Recorded May 29,  & 30; June 1-3, 5-7, 1978
Palais de la Musique et des Congres Strasbourg, France; Orchestre de Philharmonique de Strasbourg, Choeurs de L'Opéra du Rhin, Alain Lombard (cond.); Kiri Te Kanawa (Pamina), Edita Gruberova (Reine de la Nuit), Kathleen Battle (Papagena), Helena Döse (1re Dame), Ann Murray (2e Dame), Naoko Ihara (3e Dame), Peter Hofmann (Tamino), Philippe Huttenlocher (Papageno), Kurt Moll (Sarastro), José van Dam (L'Officiant) and Norbert Orth (Monostatos).
Barclay 960 012/014 P1978 (3 LPs)

The Amadeus Effect: How A 1984 Film Succeeds On Many Levels

Actor Tom Hulce portraying Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in what would become the role of a lifetime.

TCM is running Academy Award-winning movies all month long as a lead-up to this year's awards ceremony on February 27. Last night's feature was the 1984 musical bio-pic Amadeus. Written by Peter Shaffer and directed by Miloš Forman, the story is told from the perspective of Antonio Salieri who is delirious with fictionalized jealousy for a contemporary composer named Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Perhaps at first glance the project may not have appealed to a high-brow society that puritanically fills concert halls and opera houses but it manages to introduce moviegoers to wonderful Mozart compositions, some for the first time. "Amadeus is a magnificent film, full and tender and funny and charming -- and, at the end, sad and angry, too, because in the character of Salieri it has given us a way to understand not only greatness, but our own lack of it. This movie's fundamental question, I think, is whether we can learn to be grateful for the happiness of others, and that, of course, is a test for sainthood." - Rogert Ebert, film critic. Read more about Mozart, Salieria, the cast of the film, and learn more about the music featured in Amadeus, after the jump.