Questo e Quello
I’m a long-time fan of the Opera in English series funded by The Peter Moores Foundation that started, fittingly enough, with conductor Reginald Goodall’s performances of Wagner’s Ring cycle recorded live from the London Coliseum and released by EMI
On this day in 1954 Your Show Of Shows last aired on NBC-TV.
On this day in 1783 the Montgolfier brothers publicly demonstrated their montgolfière, or hot air balloon.
The host of the Metropolitan Opera’s Saturday Afternoon Radio Broadcasts and longtime public radio personality died today of complications from ovarian cancer. She was 58.
The New York City Opera saga apparently wasn’t quite dramatic enough, so now there’s a new plot twist thrown into the mix.
On this day in 1098, after a five-month siege, Crusaders seized Antioch.
La Cieca (not pictured) surrenders, cher public: she can no longer bear the burden of opposing ignorant, hysterical pearl-clutching on the internet. The clutchers have won.
On this day in 1981 Barbara Walters asked Katharine Hepburn what kind of tree she would be.
I can’t think of another 20th century opera which has grown so fast in popularity so long after its composition than Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk.
Mezzo Rinat Shaham takes a short break from being the world’s busiest Carmen and rehearsing for the theatrical concert “The Sorrows of Young Werther” to dish with your doyenne.
On this day in 1951 the International Cheese treaty was signed.
The visionary Rupert Christiansen peers into the mists of the not-yet and apprehends the perfection of the Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwerk.
On this day in 1893 Whitcomb Judson patented a hookless fastening device later called a “zipper.”
Born in this day in 1899 American screenwriter and producer Irving Thalberg.
On this day in 1453 Constantinople, capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, fell to Muhammad II, ending the Byzantine Empire.
Beginning with the dark, ominous music of the prelude of Charles Wuorinen and Annie Proulx’s opera Brokeback Mountain, we know we are in for a very different and far less sentimental version of the work than was had with Ang Lee’s iconic 2005 film.
On this day in 1937 the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California, was officially opened by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
On this day in 1944, Jean-Paul Sartre‘s Huis Clos opened (heh) in Paris.
Setting, or surely approaching, some sort of record for sheer breadth of career (70 years!), Lucine Amara returns to the New York stage this summer as the Duchess of Krakenthorp in La Fille du Régiment.
To celebrate the 86th anniversary of her birth (25 May 1929), I bring to a close Beverly Sills’ traversal of the Donizetti “Tudor Queens” with this live Anna Bolena from 1973.
On this day in 1828, the mysterious feral child Kaspar Hauser was discovered wandering the streets of Nuremberg.
If La Cieca’s life were a romantic comedy, then your doyenne would surely be 1990s era Sandra Bullock, you know, the heroine, right?
On this day in 1430 Joan of Arc was captured by the Burgundians while leading an army to relieve Compiègne.
Tell us: What’s your favorite Verdi performance?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
