Reims or reason
November has brought a lot of bad news to many of us, so Chris’s Cache will end the month with a pair of “fun” operas.
An afternoon at the opera
Il trovatore may be famous for its melodramatic plot and unlikely mistaken identities, but surely even Verdi and Cammarano couldn’t have imagined the chaos of a performance featuring two Manricos and two Leonoras.
Thane enthusiasm
Washington National Opera’s second full-run offering of the season, a new production of Verdi’s perennially appealing Macbeth, premiered last Wednesday at the Kennedy Center.
Broadcasts
La bohème
A live broadcast from New York
Otello
A live broadcast of the opening night of the 2024-25 season from Venice.
Madama Butterfly
Marina Rebeka and Joshua Guerrero lead this recent performance from Vienna.
On This Day
Justice is deaf
On this day in 1808 Beethoven's Fidelio premiered in Vienna
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This archly traditional production of La bohème was a little shaky on opening night. It nevertheless had a full complement of sterling individual performances to take us on home.
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On this day in 1974 tenor Jose Carreras made his Metropolitan Opera debut as Cavardossi
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On this day in 1839 Verdi‘s Oberto premiered in Milan
On this day in 1926 the US Premiere and first Metropolitan Opera performance of Puccini‘s Turandot.
Austin Opera’s 2024 production of The Manchurian Candidate proved to be a daring and timely commentary on political power in America, shortly after the 2024 election, just as it had been before the 2016 election.
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On this day in 1918 soprano Rosa Ponselle made her Metropolitan Opera debut, and her first appearance in opera, as Leonora
After an uneven gala performance of Tosca on Tuesday, I’m not sure what the Met means by “celebrating Puccini.”
Born on this day in 1926 soprano Leonie Rysanek
“The Metropolitan Opera announced the appointment of Daniele Rustioni to the position of Principal Guest Conductor for a three-year term.”
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Later this month the Met at last revives its striking Herbert Wernicke production of Die Frau ohne Schatten, prompting a Chris’s Cache preview of three live recordings of Strauss and Hofmannsthal’s fanciful if knotty masterpiece.
Born on this day in 1914 librettist and composer John La Touche
With Boston Lyric Opera’s largest opera production of the season already well behind us, the one-off semi-staged gala performance of Aïda held on Sunday at Emerson College’s Colonial Theatre to support the company’s vast education and community engagement apparatus, was a particularly enticing entry on the Boston cultural calendar.
I was just moderately excited when LA Opera announced that French tenor Benjamin Bernheim would be coming to concertize at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills, 90210.
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