Christopher Corwin
Christopher Corwin began writing for parterre box in 2011 under the pen name “DeCaffarrelli.” His work has also appeared in , The New York Times, Musical America, The Observer, San Francisco Classical Voice and BAMNotes. Like many, he came to opera via the Saturday Met Opera broadcasts which he began listening to at age 11. His particular enthusiasm is 17th and 18th century opera. Since 2015 he has curated the weekly podcast Trove Thursday on parterre box presenting live recordings.
“Let’s start at the very beginning” of Kent Nagano’s pioneering complete Ring project which was recently discussed here in depth in Montagu James’s review of Die Walküre.
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But pressing questions remains: Why? Who is this Figaro for?
Following Gundula Janowitz and Janet Baker, Chris’s Cache sends birthday greetings to another favorite diva—Karita Matilla—with a quartet of broadcasts.
One of the goals of both Trove Thursday and now Chris’s Cache has been to share pirate recordings of the valuable NYC groups that have presented concert operas over the decades.
Chris’s Cache celebrates the 91st birthday today of Janet Baker, one of my favorite singers.
Chris’s Cache steps up with a recording of Michael Spyres in Lohengrin, as well as with a capture of Spyres in the title role of a 2017 La Clemenza di Tito.
Chris’s Cache wishes Gundula Janowitz a happy 87th birthday today with three early live broadcasts of a favorite soprano in works by Pergolesi, Haydn, and Schumann.
“In over nine years you’ve never posted an opera by Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari,” no one has ever said.
Not so many live primetime Bolshoi Opera performances were recorded, but when the company went on tour it always brought its very best singers, and often pirates were there to capture them.
During the 1970s, Stephen Sondheim composed Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, Pacific Overtures and Sweeney Todd–five richly varied masterpieces of musical theater in a nearly miraculous burst of creativity.
Chris’s Cache follows up its Gounod R&J installment with a widely varied quintet of additional Romeos and Juliets
Earlier this month the opera world was stunned to learn of the death of Belgian soprano Jodie Devos who died of breast cancer at just 35, and Chris’s Cache remembers her with a broadcast from last November of Devos as Ophélie in Hamlet, her only US appearance.
Bergamo hosts an annual Donizetti festival, Salzburg presents a Mozart-woche every January, and of course there is Bayreuth for Wagner. But Handel gets two festivals every spring, and this year I was finally able to attend one of them.
Chris’s Cache offers two live recordings of Sondheim’s first two solo (as both composer and lyricist) Broadway shows: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and Anyone Can Whistle
Chris’s Cache offers four iterations of Bartók’s one-act masterpiece with Evelyn Lear & Thomas Stewart; Tatiana Troyanos & Siegmund Nimsgern; Agnes Baltsa& Samuel Ramey; and Nina Stemme & Gerald Finley
“What a day, what a day for an Auto-da-fe!” and it’s also always a good day for Candide, so Chris’s Cache presents a pirate recording of a 1971 staging starring Mary Costa, Frank Porretta, and William Lewis.
Chris’s Cache offers three striking interpretations of another Gluck masterpiece Alceste from Janet Baker, Anna Caterina Antonacci, and Véronique Gens
Chris’s Cache features a pair of performances of Iolanta with Tamara Milashkina and Asmik Grigorian
In advance of her Metropolitan Opera debut, Chris’s Cache showcases Asmik Grigorian’s versatility with broadcasts of Halévy, Giordano, and Korngold
I confess to being a “bad” dance fan: over the decades I’ve learned that if I don’t love (or at least like) the music, I won’t love the dance.
Chris’s Cache offers three more street-singers: a live Renata Tebaldi performance–without Franco Corelli; Tebaldi cover Milka Stojanovic with Corelli; and Ghena Dimitrova’s second local appearance in which she was menaced by Piero Cappuccilli
Having relished last week’s American Symphony Orchestra “once-in-a-liftetime” Gurrelieder (my third, in fact), I wanted to keep enjoying Schönberg’s lush early epic.
