Jessye, three ways
We have two reasons for celebrating Jessye Norman and the first is a release on the BBC / London Philharmonic Orchestra label of a Richard Strauss concert.
Recording Reviews
Conversation piece
The sonic wizards of the Netherlands at Pentatone have released their latest in the series of Maestro Lawrence Foster’s studio opera recordings. Reunited with his Lisbon forces, the Gulbenkian Orquestra and Coro, for a fresh take on Puccini’s three-hanky weeper.
Endearing gifts
Since my previous CD round-up review the onslaught of solo recital disks of 18th century (and sometimes also 17th) vocal music has continued unabated.
Hate-watch
I can’t imagine anyone watching this two-hour schlockfest at home and then dropping $150 for the privilege to see it again, masked and in an uncomfortable chair.
The curious case of Benjamin Bernheim
Who’s been hiding tenor Benjamin Bernheim from me all this time?
Her kind of woman
Plucked from obscurity by Howard Hughes and sold to the public as a buxom, brunette heir apparent to his former protégé, Jean Harlow, Jane Russell became a household name before she ever shot a single reel of film.
Selling the drama
Though the formal recorded aria recital is the ultimate calling card of an artist, the invitation to the spectator to receive, listen, and critically behold of the offerings (on fire or burnt), they are but a souvenir and there are a few drawbacks inherent with the presentation.
Telling the world we are not invisible
Director Jon M. Chu’s film adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights has come around at exactly the right moment.
Maddalena scene
This solid if not stellar performance finds our diva in particularly passionate form. Maybe they should have re-titled it Maddalena?
Shade in the shadow
Ombra Compagna, out today on Pentatone, spotlights Lisette Oropesa in 10 of Mozart’s most challenging concert arias accompanied by Il Pomo d’Oro conducted by Antonello Manacorda.
Gold dust Minnie
Giacomo Puccini’s La fanciulla del West may have its detractors (Stravinsky referred to it as a “horse-opera’) but you will not find me among them.
Sparkle, Lisette, sparkle!
Opera Philadelphia Channel invites viewers to revisit a 2015 production of La Traviata, captured on the Academy of Music stage, that’s notable for Lisette Oropesa’s debut as Violetta Valéry.
Call of the wild
Call Out is an ample demonstration of Zachary James’ many talents—and an inspiring example of the artistic light that can be generated even when our theaters are temporarily dark.
That’s what friends are for
Erato’s irresistible Rossini collection Amici e Rivali is hands down my favorite vocal CD of 2020, featuring the inspired bravura sparrings of Lawrence Brownlee and Michael Spyres.
Hear those magic reindeer click
Jonas Kaufmann would like you know it’s Christmas. Well, not unlike a broken clock, he is right, at least for one day a year.
The mélodie lingers on
Everything’s coming up mélodie! As the pandemic rages on and new lockdowns have thrown large-scale performances into disarray, record labels have been releasing new albums of French art song by the bucketload.
‘Tristan’ minus one
Imagine my surprise then when I discovered a new recording of Tristan und Isolde released by Navona Records, a small label based in New Hampshire that primarily focuses on recitals of chamber music, solo works, and smaller ensemble pieces.
Where the boys are
I often think of Boys in the Band as the gay play equivalent of Kern and Hammerstein’s Show Boat—it’s hugely important in theater history, but the politics have become extremely problematic.
Standing woman
It struck me that Jamie Barton’s voice is not dissimilar to a Henry Moore sculpture: grand and monumental but never brash or ostentatious; eccentric and offbeat but always graceful and tastefully molded.
Something close to cultishness
Over the course of 700 pages, Alex Ross exhaustively—and sometimes exhaustingly—examines an impact that began in the Wagner’s own lifetime and continues unbroken today, with references cropping up in contemporary works as different as The Matrix and Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Wild horses
This video recording of Il trovatore is sensational for all the right and wrong reasons simultaneously.
Dueling duels
Mr. Wilson’s production concept, according to his liner notes, has more to do with Paris at the time of the premiere and a “world of memory” than it does with the storytelling of civil war in medieval Spain.
Jawdropper
Robert Wilson is many things: a visionary (certainly); an iconoclast, artist, director, and designer of sets, lighting, costumes, movement (and furniture). Yet his work is never boring (well, at least not intentionally).
On the beach
On the first viewing of this Idomeneo, with a cast clad mostly in military khaki green set against a green sky, the eye starts to tire from the dullness of the surroundings.
I’ll take the fall
The days are getting shorter, but you can keep the prattle going this fall’s Talk of the Town! You will, you can, you must join in the discussion about: Great mezzo soprano performances (October),
Gained in translation (November), Teleport me back to… (December).