Questo e Quello
On first hearing, Paul Dukas’ 1907 opera Ariane et Barbe-bleue (Ariane and Bluebeard) sounds like the love child of a three-way between Wagner, Strauss, and Debussy.
There has never been a successful vampire musical—so they say. But that’s just not true.
Thursday’s Met performance of the Verdi tearjerker featured a major find: Diana Damrau, who, in her first outing as Violetta, mesmerized with her gleaming soprano and ferocious acting.
Christoph Willibald Gluck wrote some fifty operatic works, not counting revisions and translations, and in every form extant in the two cities, Paris and Vienna, in which he made his career.
Gotham Chamber Opera stumbled so badly Friday night with Francesco Cavalli’s 1668 Eliogabalo at The Box, it was hard to know whether to feel sad or angry—or both.
It has always puzzled me—and I’m not the only one—that so few successful operas have been composed in Spanish.
A Dutch-speaking parterrian has graciously translated the interview with Piotr Beczala that’s been causing such a foofaraw lately.
André Previn‘s A Streetcar Named Desire, with the “People’s Diva” herself in the iconic role of the unstable Blanche DuBois.
“With one of my favorite opera productions returning to the Met tonight, I’ve been considering lately what makes Willy Decker‘s Traviata so fine, so satisfying, and so worth a return visit.” [Musical America]
The Prince of Regie, who’ll direct a new Vêpres siciliennes for the Royal Opera this fall, is 43 years old today.
So, Piotr Beczala (left) has gone and blabbed to Luister, which is some sort of Dutch glossy classical music magazine…
La Cieca thought it would be amusing to do a bit of speculation about what’s to come as we approach the middle of the decade.
Those Romans! How decadent, how corrupt, how much fun!
Get started an hour earlier (or later?) with your discussion of off-topic and general interest subjects, cher public.
Today on Operavore, Our Own JJ talks about wig-pulling catfights. Also heard in passing are Marilyn Horne and Susan Graham.
Although married five times including to the heretofore off-limits Vestal Virgin, he patronized hundreds of prostitutes while also showering political favors on his male lovers.
Which new addition to the Met (a 2010 debut) has just had a return engagement for 2016-17 canceled?
It’s not often operagoers leave humming the scenery, but that was the case Monday, when the Met hauled out Riccardo Zandonai’s Francesca da Rimini from the vault.
New Yorkers hungry for an appearance by Karita Mattila (absent from the Met this season) will want to take a look at the Bayerische Staatsoper’s live webcast of Jenufa on Saturday afternoon.
The usually competitive cher public did not, for once, leap at the chance to flaunt their knowledge of operatic trivia, hmmm.
“I didn’t think anything could be campier than Adriana. But this is nothing but camp. Adriana at least has tunes.”
Which singer has turned out to be such a headache that the artistic administration have decided they’d better fly over a replacement?
As the balmy breezes of March caress the budding trees, so let your ardent clicks, cher public, express your affection for our advertisers.
Tell us: What’s your favorite Verdi performance?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
