Patrick Mack
Since 2010 I’ve been reading nothing but horror being heaped upon the Met’s new Ring. It’s been like a cross between a cruise ship size buffet spread of internet snarking and a slasher film re-cast with music critics.
Press quotes on the back of this new release from EMI of Georges Bizet’s masterpiece promise ”a stylish and cliché-free Carmen” and on most fronts I think it’s a fair assessment.
We approach, beloveds, as unto a shrine, for these are no ordinary performances.
The most wonderful thing about opera on video is the vicarious thrill of seeing performances of important works in the most glamorous foreign theaters in gala presentations with musicians of great renown for a piddling fraction of the cost.
Manuel de Falla’s La Vida Breve makes its video debut with this release from C-Major which means there’s still plenty of opportunities for improvement.
As a child I had but a few criteria that were necessary to ensure a happy entertainment. These included mostly ball-gowns, fairy godmothers and Julie Andrews, though Sally Ann Howes was acceptable in a pinch.
Richard Strauss’s “last romantic opera,” as he called Die Frau Ohne Schatten, is and has always been a problem child.
The operas of Leos Janácek have been slowly gaining ground in the world’s theatres over the past fifty years.
Jules Massenet’s Don Quichotte was one of a number of commissions from the Monte Carlo Opera that occupied the composer at the end of his life.
You may remember, gentle readers, that last year about this time Peter Gelb decided to enter into an unholy alliance with Target to benefit their mountainous number of opera loving customers by pre-releasing two Met performances exclusively in their fine emporiums.
Jules Massenet wrote Werther at the midpoint of his very successful career.
The Met has finally released the contents of the James Levine 40th Anniversary box sets separately for those of us who didn’t have $500 lying around.
There’s nothing like a good performance of Verdi’s Macbeth and here is proof positive because this dvd is (almost) nothing like a good performance.
I have been a devotee of Berlioz’s Les Troyens since I first discovered the Covent Garden recording conducted by Colin Davis.
The case for this DVD production of Puccini’s La Boheme from Opera Australia is all about the “inspired concept” of director Gale Edwards to move this oft-told tale from 1840’s Paris all the way to the Berlin at the end of Weimar-era Germany. Hmmm.
Being an opera lover in Los Angeles is a lot like being a Red Sox fan. As hard as they try we never make it to the World Series, let alone the playoffs.
Ah, the “themed” recital disc! Sometimes it’s a special treasure in a collector’s trove showing off the lesser known skills of a beloved performer; more often, an object of mirth and ridicule toward those who’ve been ill-advised or have already committed most of their repertoire in the studio and are now starting in on someone…
I’ve been a big fan of Donizetti’s Anna Bolena since I first heard it on recording and have always felt that it deserved a definitive recorded performance. Here’s a brief tour of why this hasn’t happened. There’s the Bible, also known as the live Scala relay with Callas and Simionato and musical cuts so egregious…
I’ll confess it. I am a bloodthirsty opera fan. I’m not above judging the quality of a work by the size of the body count at the finale. After sitting through Traviata or Boheme all evening I’m often disappointed when only one person dies in the last act. All the principals are dead at the…
In what may qualify as the most unholy alliance of Peter Gelb‘s tenure at the Met so far, since February the “Live in HD” performances from 2009 of both Turandot and Aida issued by Decca have been available from… Target. Only Target. They are scheduled for international release this July. Up until recently there has…
This mostly wonderful performance of Handel’s Theodora opened the 2009 Salzburg Festival in honor of the 250th anniversary of the composer’s death. Written at the beginning of the last decade of the composer’s life, it was a work that he held in very high regard even though he knew its subject matter would not excite. Only…