Antonietta Stella 1929-2022
The celebrated Italian soprano died yesterday. She was 92.
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Drama queen
Born on this day in 1927 soprano Régine Crespin.
To the night
Minutes into “An die Nacht,” the first song Friday night, I realized how much I’d missed being enveloped in that seductive Straussian combination of a soprano (or two or three) rising higher and higher over a surging orchestra.
“Loneliness is a heavy burden”
Born on this day in 1921 actress Giulietta Masina.
I couldn’t aspire to anything higher
Born on this day in 1934 actress Rue McClanahan.
Work on ‘Progress’
Young voices ringing out Stravinsky’s witty melodies at close quarters gives great pleasure if you are fond of this witty score and its many parodies of early operatic cliché.
Guess who I saw today
Born on this day in 1937 singer and actress Nancy Wilson.
Boris Godunov
René Pape, the world’s reigning Boris, reprises his overwhelming portrayal of the tortured tsar in the original 1869 version of the opera.
Trouble in River City
Jerry Zaks’ high-gloss production, which trades heavily on a bland Americana at odds with the sharp satire of Meredith Willson’s libretto and timeless score, operates on all cylinders but fires on hardly any.
Poetess
Born on this day in 1926 mezzo-soprano Rita Gorr.
American gongster
Tantalizing tenor Michael Fabiano adds a new role to his repertoire barely five weeks from today.
A place in the shade
Next Wednesday is the composer’s 337th birthday, so Trove Thursday previews this spring’s most enticing Handel performance with two very different live versions of his delightful Serse,.
Moving on
The Kennedy Center’s Opera House was a white-hot crucible of theatre kid energy on Friday evening for a luxurious 50 Years of Broadway at the Kennedy Center gala.
“Hello, possums!”
Happy 88th birthday to comedian Barry (“Dame Edna”) Humphries.
Happy Go Lovely
Born on this day in 1921 dancer Vera-Ellen.
Music doesn’t argue, discuss, or quarrel
Born on this day in 1905 composer Harold Arlen.
Die Tote Stadt
A Willy Decker production, live from the Vienna State Opera.
Cries and whispers
Embedded in the discursive scenes that make up the 100-minute play Shhhh is the notion that the line between pleasure and pain—of the corporeal and psychological varieties—is ever-shifting and often problematically conceived.
Verdi Requiem
Performance from September 11, 2021. Yannick Nézet-Séguin; Ailyn Pérez, Michelle DeYoung, Matthew Polenzani, Eric Owens.
I have designed flower women
On this day in 1947 Christian Dior unveiled the “New Look.”
It’s Time for Tina
Happy 88th birthday to actress and singer Tina Louise.
Treasured island
Trove Thursday offers a 1994 “pirate” of Ariadne auf Naxos featuring Gabriela Benacková and Natalie Dessay, along with another Viennese diva pairing: Benacková and Sena Jurinac in the second act of Janacek’s Jenufa.