Elina Garanča and Brian Jagde in Cavalleria Rusticana / Photo: Brescia e Amisano

As summer festival programs begin to trickle out, Elina Garanča‘s upcoming Ariadne in Salzburg seems to be one of the more intriguing offerings. Today’s Grand Tier Grab Bag anticipates this Zwischenfach pivot by sharing Garanča in some other not-quite-mezzo repertoire opposite Brian Jagde.

Jagde and Garanča, whom we hear together today in the duet from Cavalleria rusticana, will reunite in another verismo title, Adriana Lecouvreur in Naples in the spring. And while she’ll sing the Princesse de Bouillon at the San Carlo, she has perhaps hinted at her upcoming Fach expansion with Adriana’s aria which she has programmed in concerts for nearly a decade.

But before they arrive in Naples, Jagde will sing his first Lohengrin in Venice while Garanča returns to Berlioz’s Marguerite in Zurich. Today’s performance also documents Jagde’s La Scala debut; he would return to the house later that year to open the season as Alvaro in La forza del destino, replacing Jonas Kaufmann.

As they listen, members of cher public are invited to brainstorm other singers who have taken on the incongruous pair of Ariadne and Santuzza.

Mascagni: Cavalleria rusticana, “Tu qui, Santuzza?”

Elina Garanča
Brian Jagde
Francesca Di Sauro

Conductor: Giampaolo Bisanti
Teatro alla Scala, Milan
16 April 2024
In-house