This performance features Samuel Ramey in what I consider one of the most powerful deliveries of this aria on record.
“Even Peter Gelb’s critics concede that he has had a long run of finding pots of gold,” says The New York Times of the Metropolitan Opera‘s dire money troubles. “But is he running out of rainbows?”
Nobody in my experience has come close to rivaling Samuel Ramey as the shy, lovelorn Englishman Lord Sidney from that first cast.
Confused dramaturgy dampens an otherwise sparkling night of singing in Opera Baltimore’s Lucrezia Borgia.
American Bach brings out the operatic side of Bach in a program featuring sparkling vocal talents.
Mascagni‘s Zanetto, a slight, Renaissance scene, gets a new recording from the Berlin Opera Group.
The great bass Len Dresslar became famous (if unknown) as the voice of the Jolly Green Giant on all those ads that those of us (of a certain age) grew up on
Despite some fine performances, Così fan tutte at the Livermore Valley Opera doesn’t quite click into place.
Akhnaten has lost none of its power or glitz at the Los Angeles Opera.
Fyodor Chaliapin, the very great Russian basso, to this day owns the role of Massenet’s Don Quichotte.
Parterre Box previews an upcoming performance of Hercules with Ann Hallenberg in some very unique Baroque repertoire.
Strong performances at Opera Naples can’t overcome the cringey nostalgia of Derrick Wang‘s Scalia/Ginsburg.
The one, the only Fyodor Chaliapin, singing Massenet’s “Elegie” (with, I believe, a young Piatigorsky on the cello part).
Will Liverman and Kiera Duffy brought an eclectic program to their jovial post-blizzard recital at Rhode Island College.
Fyodor Chaliapin is considered one of the greatest basses ever because he combined a dark, flexible, and instantly recognizable bass voice with extraordinary musical intelligence and nuance.
A uniformly strong cast triumphs over a dull production of Don Carlo at the Dallas Opera.
Baritone John Brancy smoothly traverses the American songbook at Carnegie Hall.
I wanted to make sure Paata Burchuladze gets celebrated in this series.
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