Questo e Quello
Congratulations and best wishes to Kennedy Center President Michael M. Kaiser and and economist John Roberts, who will be married tonight at the performing arts center in a ceremony officiated by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Teresa Berganza is the latest superannuated superstar to jump on the “I hate regie” bandwagon.
All right, I admit it; I finally broke down and read the program notes for the Ring in the Bayreuth program book.
The 1965 season was a time of big changes at the Vienna State Opera.
Which opera company has informed a budding composer they are willing to add his new opera to their repertoire for next season… so long as said composer can kick in the estimated $2 million it would cost to present his work?
Is Der Ring des Nibelungen responsible for the transformation of Seattle from a gray, damp, low-rise Boeing company town where half the jokes had punchlines in Norwegian (and were about lutefisk in any case) into today's booming cultural metropolis? I like to think so.
Which veteran artist delivers doubly sad news this week, canceling an opera that was written for her?
I’m told that the public were, if hardly enthusiastic, at least ambivalent toward the Frank Castorf Ring up until the first performance of Siegfried, at which point things got really ugly and the booing started in earnest.
Let’s take a moment, liebes Publikum, to discuss off-topic and general interest subjects.
First things first: working from the limited evidence of half or less than half of Frank Castorf’s production of the Ring, I don’t see any evidence of contempt for the audience or whatever you want to call it.
There are some productions that “introduce” themselves quite clearly early on: for example, the Patrice Chereau Ring puts it cards on the table very frankly with the image of the hydroelectric dam populated by grisette Rhinedaughters.
Our Own JJ (right) reports he is ready and relatively un-jetlagged for Das Rheingold tonight at Bayreuth. He'll have comments afterward.
What we have here is the grandest opera never heard.
Opera Teen (pictured) approves of this summer’s program at the Glimmerglass Festival.
Among the highlights of the first performance of Camille was the fact that its only solo was a Parisian ballad sung by ‘Our Mary’ Garden atop a table in her fashionable salon and its only chorus a few ribald lines by a roomful of guests who had drunk enough champagne to be feeling pretty gay.
What other company indeed but the Bayerische Staatsoper would commission David LaChapelle to photograph Diana Damrau for their portrait gallery?
Until the Baron de Varville returns, cher public, take this opportunity to indulge in discussion of off-topic and general interest subjects.
Seventeenth century opera remains the true connoisseur’s delight partly because it’s so rarely done.
Anna Netrebko‘ s new CD of Verdi arias seems to be a bold, defiant, “in your face” statement about the direction she is taking with her career.
Rupert Christiansen (not pictured) writes, “…a right old mash-up of Meistersinger, confusing, contorting and complicating something which should communicate with radiant emotional and intellectual simplicity.”
Thérèse is a compact work consisting of two short acts and clocks in just under seventy minutes.
La Cieca and DeCaffarrelli unanimously hail Trubadur as winner of the “Ladies in the Dark” vocal ID competition.
“An earlier version of this post referred incorrectly to the gender of the mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton. Ms. Barton is a woman.”
La Cieca has been wining, dining and otherwise wooing her Met connection (pictured above) and he (or is it she?) has come across with some tidbits about upcoming seasons at Casa Gelb.
Tell us: What’s your favorite Verdi performance?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
