Back over the rainbow bridge
“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.
Podcast / Chris’s Cache
Operatic gems, secret live recordings, and honestly a little filth… from the collection of Christopher Corwin.
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Stage animal control
Following Gundula Janowitz and Janet Baker, Chris’s Cache sends birthday greetings to another favorite diva—Karita Matilla—with a quartet of broadcasts.
Letter rip
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.
Interplanet Janet
Chris’s Cache celebrates the 91st birthday today of Janet Baker, one of my favorite singers.
Spyres of ascension
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.
Fête-a-fête
Rameau is in the news—at least in France!
Utterly unique, occasionally off-putting
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.
The servant of two last names
“In over nine years you’ve never posted an opera by Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari,” no one has ever said.
Written in the tsars
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.
I would they had changed voices too!
Chris’s Cache follows up its Gounod R&J installment with a widely varied quintet of additional Romeos and Juliets
One that was a woman
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.
What’s natural comes hard
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
The secret seven
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
Nach mir wird Einer kommen, der ist stärker als ich
A second Parisian Salome, in crisper sound, has surfaced for the perverse pleasure of cher public
Ich will dir alles geben, was dein Herz begehrt
A parterre box exclusive: a live recording of Lise Davidsen‘s first Judean princess
A mouth so fair it must be kissed
“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.
Seiji’s angels
Je sens une force nouvelle
Chris’s Cache offers three striking interpretations of another Gluck masterpiece Alceste from Janet Baker, Anna Caterina Antonacci, and Véronique Gens
Look there, look there!
Chris’s Cache features a pair of performances of Iolanta with Tamara Milashkina and Asmik Grigorian
Grigorian chant
In advance of her Metropolitan Opera debut, Chris’s Cache showcases Asmik Grigorian’s versatility with broadcasts of Halévy, Giordano, and Korngold
Love triangle below canal
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
Sensory overload
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.
Spit or swallow
Next week Puccini’s La Rondine returns to the Met for the first time in eleven years, so Chris’s Cache offers three quite diverse sopranos as Magda: Ljuba Welitsch, Virginia Zeani, and Cristina Gallardo-Domâs.
The real and the ideal
Chris’s Cache offers a Leoncavallo double-bill: Aprile Millo in Zazà and Jon Vickers and Carol Vaness in Pagliacci