parterre box

Feldmarschallin: The new Siegfried which opens on Pfinstsonntag at BSO. Funny that Lance Ryan sounds Eastern... 2:56 AM
MontyNostry: … and does Stemme’s voice really have a “bright sheen”? Oh, I’d... 2:55 AM
MrGuy1804: You are right on the money. I was not terribly impressed with any of the singing. There were a few... 12:29 AM
Camille: That was fun, thanks! I had completely forgotten Eastern Airlines, the Wings of Man. With a name like... 12:22 AM
Henry Holland: Thanks! Too bad they didn’t do Der Zwerg instead of the (wonderful) Puccini. The LA Opera... 12:09 AM
Camille: Thanks Blue, for the review. Lord, what are “earthy colorings”? 12:06 AM
Gualtier M: Here is Carmelita Pope in the actual 70′s era Pam commercial at 2:36 in: httpv://www.you... 12:03 AM
CruzSF: kashania, please tell us more about these performances. Who? How presented? And don’t neglect the... 12:03 AM

Mouth feel

by La Cieca | 4:26 am | May 9, 2012

“The bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni, playing Leporello in the Met’s recent Don Giovanni, asked for vegetable sausage, said James Blumenfeld, the Met property master. ‘It was the most disgusting thing I ever smelled,’ Mr. Blumenfeld said. He added that the bass-baritone James Morris is known for preferring bananas when he is playing Scarpia in the fatal meal scene of Verdi’s Tosca.” [New York Times] (Photo: Ken Howard)

Ceasefire

by La Cieca | 9:00 am | May 8, 2012

Here’s a change of pace for you parterre chatters as the Met season winds down. WQXR will broadcast Kevin Puts‘ Pulitzer Prize winning Silent Night: An Opera in Two Acts tonight on their webstream Operavore. Read more »

Wholly Grail

by Adriel | 5:19 pm | May 7, 2012

Certain opera productions become the stuff of legend as much for the circumstances surrounding the performance as for the musical results. Harry Kupfer’s 1992 Parsifal for the Berlin Staatsoper came at an epochal time, following the fall of the Berlin Wall and just after Daniel Barenboim was appointed the company’s music director. Putting an especially strong cast of under Kupfer’s direction was thought to portend a Renaissance for a house that had languished in the communist East, and hint at broader artistic possibilities for the reunified German republic. Read more »