Poison Ivy
Poison Ivy is the alter-ego of Ivy Lin, who in her day job teaches biology at an alternative transfer high school. Ivy's love of opera began when her father decreed that Mozart, Beethoven and other symphonic and instrumental works were superior to opera. Naturally, Ivy rebelled and began to secretly listen to Met broadcasts on Saturday afternoons on WQXR. In her spare time Ivy runs her own performance arts blog, brags about her cat, and obsesses over Game of Thrones. If Ivy were to sing opera she’d be typecast as Despina until she was in a wheelchair.
f you like opera to look like a museum, the Arena di Verona’s latest video of Aida should jump to the top of your wish list.
The Jesi foundation continues its tireless quest of making Pergolesi operas available on video.
This DVD of a Diana Damrau recital (accompanied only by the harpist Xavier de Maistre) is sure to please her legions of fans.
In August 1845 Alexandre Dumas fils ended his brief but passionate affair with Parisian courtesan Marie Duplessis. He sent her a bitter letter that is often quoted in program notes about La Traviata.
Those Romans! How decadent, how corrupt, how much fun!
La Salustia was Giovanni Batista Pergolesi’s first opera, composed at the tender age of 21. In structure and storyline it’s a conventional baroque opera seria.
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s best known opera is La Serva Padrona, but the Neapolitan composer also composed several other works, which are now lovingly presented on video by the Fondazione Pergolesi Spontini at Jesi.
I’ve always had a certain affection for Roberto Alagna.
Natalie Dessay coyly bares a breast on the cover of Virgin Classics’ new Giulio Cesare.
The performance at the Metropolitan Opera last night proved that yes, it is possible to kill this opera. I don’t know how they managed it, but they did.
This Hans Neuenfels staging for the Bayreuth Festival caused quite a stir at its 2010 premiere, but now, with time and distance, how radical is the production?
This year, I attended one of Natalie Dessay‘s only fully-sung Traviatas at the Met.
Rusalka and her sisters are huddled in the flooded basement.
L’elisir d’amore, Donizetti’s evergreen comedy about young love, returned to the Met last night with a strong cast, a high energy level from all the performers, and last but not least, a very full house.