No, you’re not the only one totally losing it right now. I—pictured below—am also crying, vomiting, and screaming interpolated sovracuti into the void.
I mean does anyone caaare about opera or opera news right now? Sometimes it strikes me as just another thing visibly living on death, building up all around us, eating at and on a surface like plaque, gruesome and dumb and ominously prescient of some avoidable and expensive catastrophe.
Is opera a still life? or is it still Life? Perhaps the only way to know is to stare at it, listen, and wait.
So let’s do that together, we freaks who love opera deeply even—and especially—when we hate everything else.
And what voice more appropriate to listen to at this moment than that of the “the world’s reigning dramatic soprano” Nina Stemme, who appears this spring in two major events:
SPONSORED Who knew betrayal could sound this beautiful?
You did and I did; that’s who did.
On June 1 and 8, Yannick leads The Philadelphia Orchestra and a world-class cast in a rare concert performance that promises to bring every detail and nuance of this richly harmonic score to life.
The cast features two artists known for their characterizations of the roles whose names appear in the title of the opera we’re referring to in this section of the email but who haven’t been seen on these shores in those roles since that opera was last performed at the Met a decade ago.
Soprano Nina Stemme has inhabited the role of Isolde and brilliantly captured the elemental fury and longing of a woman trapped. Tenor Stuart Skelton has been (as The Arts Desk put it) “the world Tristan of choice for a long time now.”
Love and death in the City of, ahem, Brotherly Love. Sounds like something you (and your slightly more significant other) oughtn’t miss.
We said “Mild und leise” …among other things. And now you need to see Nina. You desire it. You reach out for it.
“But girl, the tariffs…”
Um, but girl, this is the “world’s leading dramatic soprano.” And tix start at $26.50.
But if you can’t swallow that price—get real, we know who you are—then enter to win a pair of free tickets, care of our dear, dear friends at Carnegie Hall.
Before this weekend, I never thought I would want to leave an opera by Act I. The recent production of Puccini’s La bohème at the Lyric Opera of Chicago taught me that there’s a first time for everything.
Christina Nilsson‘s debut enlivened the Met’s new Aïda.
Ken Howard
Grand Tier Grab Bag
At parterre box we take care of you international DL* lovers. We’re quietly fluffing a new podcast with stimulating morsels from here, there, and everywhere around the opera world.
Ahead of his only New York appearances this season later this month, we look forward to the return of estimable baritone Amartuvshin Enkhbat by sharing a clip featuring starry company.
Enkhbat, who is joined here by Jonas Kaufmann and Sondra Radvanovsky in two clips from the final Act of La forza del destino, will perform as Amonasro opposite Angel Blue‘s Aïda and Elina Garanca‘s highly anticipated Amneris starting April 27.
* Use your imagination… vividly.
Do you have questions, tips, suggestions, gripes, or story ideas? Email us if you must: [email protected]
Ciao for now!
Nick Scholl Publisher, parterre box
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