Questo e Quello
On the occasion of Sondra Radvanovsky‘s role debut in Roberto Devereux, I thought this would ba a good opportunity to put put together a compilation of some of my favorite artists singing the fiendishly difficult final scene of this opera.
“Toilets occupy me a great deal because, well, this is England after all and they matter.”
Thanks to Jungfer Marianne Leitmetzerin, here are a pair of short Puccini operas, Le villi and Suor Angelica.
The Met season may (just) be over, but it’s always the right time for discussion of off-topic and general interest subjects.
La Cieca wishes the divine Jessye Norman the very best of luck with her newly-released autobiography
Stand Up Straight and Sing, because—not to put too fine a point on it—it doesn’t look like the diva is going to make much of a go of her second career as a saloon singer.
There is a truism that there are no small parts, only small singers. Last night’s Così fan tutte has made me consider another possible truism: there are no bad productions, only miscast productions.
David Daniels and Whitney Walters will be married on June 21st in Washington, DC by none other than Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Think of it as the anti-Puritani.
Legendary Birgit Nilsson heads a spectacular cast in the second act of Götterdämmerung, our latest treasure from Mike Richter‘s trove of CD-ROMs.
The Met may be missing an angle calculated to appeal to the more adventurous attendee: opera as game of chance.
Leave it to that savviest of all divas, Jessye Norman, to work a subtle product placement into the very first chapter of her newly-released autobiography, Stand Up Straight and Sing.
Alan Gordon, embedded journalist, reports from inside the first AGMA/Met negotiation session.
“My opera will be the grandest of all!”
“Her manner is straightforward, even blunt at times, though she is a match for any diplomat.”
The noble Alceste of Kirsten Flagstad is but one of many fascinating live recordings featured in Opera Depot’s May Sale.
Here’s a playlist of bel canto favorite suitable for motivating even the most couch potatoesque of parterrians to put in a hard session of weight training.
This week, Our Own Jungfer Marianne Leitmetzerin shares a modern classic: Wozzeck from the Opéra national de Paris, featuring Simon Keenlyside.
The first single by MU, “The Bomp Bomp Song,” is now available for download from CD Baby.
Identically-coiffed artistes Klaus Florian Vogt and Renée Fleming prove conclusively that American musical theater is not an international language.
In Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, all the Russian people starve and suffer, but none has suffering like the mental agonies of Tsar Boris.
Before there was Verdi’s Otello, Rossini’s Otello was considered the master operatic adaptation of Shakespeare’s tragedy.
La Cieca hopes any confusion will be cleared up soon enough that you, the cher public, may engage in your weekly round of conversation on general interest and off-topic subjects.
Peter Gelb sent out an email to the “Public Bulletin Board” earlier today, noting that “inaccurate rumors [are] flying around” and attempting to clarify the Met’s position on upcoming union negotiations.
The operas of Franz Josef Haydn are seldom presented in the great opera houses of the world, but then, they weren’t composed for the great opera houses of his own world.
Tell us: What’s your favorite Verdi performance?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
