Parterre Box
I have very few opportunities to see real-life opera divas, but when Natalie Dessay chose to debut her first Traviata at Santa Fe, there was no way I was going to miss it.
The air held a real charge that night in SF’s War Memorial Opera House.
The English soprano, famed for her interpretations of twentieth-century composers like Strauss, Britten, and Poulenc, as well as Mozart and operetta, died yesterday only a few days after announcing that she had a terminal cancer.
Nothing prepared me for the Soviero experience
A well-known Met Aïda with a starry cast from 1967 is TildyDiva’s Favorite Verdi Performance
Grand Tier Grab Bag hearkens back to the days when Sondra Radvanovsky — who is singing no Verdi at all next season — seemed like the Verdi soprano of reference.
My favorite Verdi performance is Claudio Abbado Don Carlo opening of the Scala.
The purely musical performance preserved here is thrilling, ratcheted to a higher intensity than the Deutsche Grammophon studio recording
Victoria de los Ángeles has always been my Violetta of choice, a portrayal that never ceases to move me.
I feel that the best years of Maria Callas’s vocalità, when we hear such a unique freedom and generosity in her singing, were captured in her early recordings.
Elisabeth Grümmer was, of course, very good at Wagnerian prayers, but she also shines in this Verdi prayer.
Parterre Box features the Met’s current Eugene Onegin, Iurii Samoilov, in a performance of Rossini ahead of a return to Pesaro this summer.
When I was a fledgling opera enthusiast, professors at a small-town Wisconsin college routinely travelled to Chicago for Lyric Opera performances.
Anna Tomowa-Sintow, “Ernani Involami,” from the MET Centenial Gala, 1983.
Like probably all of us, there are so many different things I could have submitted for a favorite Verdi performance.
I realize Igor Gorin did not sing much Verdi except for a few Papa Germonts, yet this performance of the famous baritone aria from Attila I claim is well-night perfect singing.
Luminous Lucia Popp’s “Caro Nome” beams with Gilda’s youthful passion, displaying Popp’s signature bright, beautiful timbre and magnificent coloratura.
While studying Un ballo in maschera for my Vienna role debut next January, I came across this beautiful ‘Ecco l’orrido campo’ amazingly performed by Montserrat Caballé.
“You’re your own boss.”
Nostalgic for bass month, Parterre Box offers excerpts from two young basses to watch: Giorgi Manoshvili and Patrick Guetti.
While refined, Lisa della Casa sings “Four Last Songs” deeply alert to the text and with effortless vocalization that sounds fresh and spontaneous.
Funnily enough, I’m not remotely a Rachmaninov fan, but this performance by Galina Vishnevskaya in her considerable prime always gives me the chills.
With youthful abandon, Ms. Feola interprets an old chestnut.
This prompt of “favorite art song performance” seems just about as broad — and almost silly — a question as asking a painter what their favorite color is.
Tell us: What’s your favorite Verdi performance?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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