Questo e Quello
So, cher public, as you air out your aigrettes and polish your parure in preparation for the 2015 fall season, which amongst the many offerings, uh, offered will be your must-sees?
If I’d gotten an hour less sleep you’d now find me mixing everything up and writing about Mrs. Lovett making her entrance on a bronze horse like Peter the Great.
Enthusiasts of Janácek’s opera will want to pick up this video immediately.
One of the glorious perks of my job, which is selling luxury cruises, is that on a semi-occasional basis I get to sample the wares myself—purely from an educational standpoint, mind you.
Happy 69th birthday actress Carmen Maura.
In honor of the upcoming Met Opening Night, here’s a singer identification quiz featuring, for a change, music for a tenor: the climactic phrase from Otello’s third act monologue.
“It’s in the ‘Behind the Scenes’ section of the Lady Gaga issue, involving Brian Mitchell, archivist and occasional child wrangler with the Houston Grand Opera.”
The studio opera recording is a rare beast these days and its arrival always a cause for celebration.
While they seemed made for each other as stage partners, Montserrat Caballé and Luciano Pavarotti sang relatively few performances together.
On this day in 1985 The Golden Girls, starring Bea Arthur, Betty White, Rue McClanahan and Estelle Getty, debuted on NBC.
Here Danielle de Niese throws an ecdysiastical twist into a medley from The Sound of Music.
“Jonas Kaufmann, the German singer who performed Rule Britannia, looked delighted as he was pelted with lacey undergarments from female fans.”
The clear winner of the “Dinner for Schmuck” competition is DharmaBray‘s succulent menu.
The winter 2014 final run of the Met’s first/only Rusalka production (a new one is scheduled in a few seasons) seemed both a nod to the theater’s past and a hint of its future.
On this day in 1963 The Outer Limits premiered on ABC TV.
Gala this; gala that; who knew rich people wore clothes so badly?
The strange and deeply moving production of La bohème by Stefan Herheim for Den Norske Opera begins at 1:00 PM EDT this afternoon. You can watch it here on parterre, after the jump.
On this day in 490 BC Athenians and their Plataean allies defeated the first Persian invasion force of Greece at the Battle of Marathon.
On this day in 1850, the “Swedish Nightingale,” Jenny Lind, gave her first United States concert.
I’m beginning this new series of “pirate-casts” with a great opera: Berlioz’s Les Troyens featuring the luminous pairing of Janet Baker and Jon Vickers as Didon and Énée.
On this day in 1863 Georges Bizet’s opera Les Pêcheurs de Perles premiered in Paris.
On this day Queen Elizabeth II becomes Great Britain’s becomes longest-reigning monarch.
On this day in 1953 the musical Carnival in Flanders opened at the New Century Theater in New York, to run six performances.
While Bernard Herrmann is remembered primarily for the seven films on which he collaborated with Hitchcock, he also composed one opera: Wuthering Heights, written between 1943 and 1951.
Tell us: What’s your favorite Verdi performance?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
