Christopher Corwin
Christopher Corwin began writing for parterre box in 2011 under the pen name “DeCaffarrelli.” His work has also appeared in Musical America, 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.
“Trove Thursday” offers Offenbach’s irreverent La Belle Hélène featuring the beauteous Véronique Gens.
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MILA comes to New York and San Francisco
Sung in English, Cantonese and Tagalog, Mila explores the cultural diversity of Hong Kong at New York’s Angel Orensanz Center (Dec. 7) and San Francisco’s Wilsey Center for Opera (Dec. 12). The hour-long opera is the creation of Eli Marshall, Candace Chong and Chu Hei Chan, with music director Neal Goren.
“Trove Thursday” presents Purcell’s remarkably concise Dido and Aeneas in a pair of fascinatingly different interpretations.
Trove Thursday presents Rameau’s deliciously exotic omnibus Les Indes Galantes.
“Trove Thursday” remembers the company’s very first Lady Macbeth via Leonie Rysanek’s NYC debut in a concert performance of Verdi’s Shakespeare masterpiece less than a year before her first Met appearance.
“Trove Thursday” escapes to an exotic place with Rimsky-Korsakov’s Sadko.
Bard SummerScape’s concert staging of Die Tote Stadt emerged triumphant thanks to Clay Hilley and Sara Jakubiak.
“Trove Thursday” turns to a quintet of baritone/bass voices: Matthias Goerne, Simon Keenlyside, Georg Nigl, Thomas Quasthoff and René Pape performing works by Pfitzner, Sibelius, Adams, Martin and Schubert.
“Trove Thursday” features its two favorite baritones in a pair of comforting settings of the Requiem.
Beauteous Trinidadian soprano Jeanine De Bique appeared Sunday afternoon with the visiting Budapest Festival Orchestra under Ivan Fischer.
“Trove Thursday” presents a complete Prodanà Nevesta (aka Die Verkaufte Braut, of course) by Smetana plus extended excerpts from a broadcast of Spontini’s La Vestale in its rarely heard original French version.
The aphorisms projected before each act of Das Wunder der Heliane suggested the work concerns the transformative power of love—but does it really?
“Trove Thursday” presents a broadcast of Benvenuto Cellini (in English) starring Berlioz tenor par excellence Michael Spyres as the flamboyant goldsmith.
Trove Thursday offers Bellini’s La Sonnambula with Anna Moffo (San Francisco 1960) and Anna Netrebko (Vienna 2006).
Why did I mostly want to close my eyes and just listen?
Can a work with indisputably great music fail to add up to a successful opera? I puzzled over that Sunday during Teatro Nuovo’s essential concert staging of Rossini’s La Gazza Ladra at SUNY Purchase.
Trove Thursday presents a double dose of the Verdi Messa da Requiem performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Die Tote Stadt in a 1967 Vienna broadcast appropriately featuring three American stars: John Alexander, Marilyn Zschau, and George London.
“Trove Thursday” turns to an opera by a gay American composer prior to Sunday’s Stonewall 50 commemoration: Samuel Barber’s gothic melodrama Vanessa starring the great Carol Vaness.
Trove Thursday presents La Périchole featuring Frederica von Stade’s only performance of the title role in a rare NYC concert version narrated by the inimitable Madeline Kahn.
Elina Garanca was radiantly present at Carnegie Hall Friday night performing a ravishingly somber Rückert-Lieder with Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the MET Orchestra.
“Trove Thursday” offers a vivid live complete broadcast from the 1952 US State Department tour of Porgy and Bess with William Warfield, Cab Calloway and the 25-year-old Leontyne Price.
An unusually provocative program by the Orchestra of St. Luke’s conducted by Bernard Labadie with soloists Lydia Teuscher and Benno Schachtner made my “return” Thursday evening an illuminating and rewarding experience at Zankel Hall.
“Trove Thursday” explores a dozen solo sacred works by the Red Priest.
Verdi’s Giovanna d’Arco in a rare NYC concert performance with Margaret Price, Carlo Bergonzi and Sherrill Milnes.
