Recent Stories
Yuval Sharon and the American Modern Opera Company meld Monteverdi and George Lewis in a live performance from Lincoln Center
A juicy, guilty pleasure read!
Carmen in Brussels is dramatically vibrant, if vocally stretched
A muted production challenges a talented cast in San Francisco Opera’s Idomeneo
According to the memoirs of Alma Mahler, her third husband, Franz Werfel used to wander around the cafés of Paris with one of his chums, singing arias from obscure Verdi operas at the top of their lungs until the management would ask them to move on.
Chris’s Cache offers an early 80th birthday salute to Jessye Norman with broadcasts of Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius, and Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder plus a pair of opera arias by Verdi and Mascagni from a 1979 Atlanta Symphony concert with Robert Shaw.
Giovanni Verga‘s short story (which he adapted as a play with Giuseppe Giacosa) provides the basis for Mascagni‘s famous opera.
A starry concert Aïda in Baltimore proves unusually polished
Tell us: What’s your favorite Verdi performance?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
Grand Tier Grab Bag
Grand Tier Grab Bag
Drink me
Drink me
Parterre Box answers the question, “how can a singer do both Tristan and Nemorino within a few month of each other?” with a clip of a recent role debut from Michael Spyres.
Parterre Box answers the question, “how can a singer do both Tristan and Nemorino within a few month of each other?” with a clip of a recent role debut from Michael Spyres.
Grand Tier Grab Bag
Otherwise occupied
Otherwise occupied
Parterre Box features a performance from two belcantisti who would rather you not think about their political affiliations.
Parterre Box features a performance from two belcantisti who would rather you not think about their political affiliations.
Grand Tier Grab Bag
Northern star
Northern star
Parterre Box previews an upcoming performance of Hercules with Ann Hallenberg in some very unique Baroque repertoire.
Parterre Box previews an upcoming performance of Hercules with Ann Hallenberg in some very unique Baroque repertoire.
Grand Tier Grab Bag
Tra voi belle
Tra voi belle
Following the announcement that she’ll make her Met debut next season, Grand Tier Grab Bag brings Italian soprano Erika Grimaldi to your attention with a duet from Manon Lescaut.
Following the announcement that she’ll make her Met debut next season, Grand Tier Grab Bag brings Italian soprano Erika Grimaldi to your attention with a duet from Manon Lescaut.
Grand Tier Grab Bag
León in winter
León in winter
Ahead of his performance in Les pêcheurs de perles with Washington Concert Opera, Parterre Box features the unusually elegant Anthony León performing Mozart.
Ahead of his performance in Les pêcheurs de perles with Washington Concert Opera, Parterre Box features the unusually elegant Anthony León performing Mozart.
Grand Tier Grab Bag
Assai più vale il soglio
che un genitor perduto
Assai più vale il soglio
che un genitor perduto
Parterre Box highlights a busy few months of Verdi performances for Marina Rebeka and Ludovic Tézier with an exciting sample of their debuts in Nabucco.
Parterre Box highlights a busy few months of Verdi performances for Marina Rebeka and Ludovic Tézier with an exciting sample of their debuts in Nabucco.
John Yohalem reports on Catapult Opera’s satiating San Giovanni Battista
A live video broadcast from Vienna
Alex Ross wrote an exciting, gorgeously detailed examination of, for better or worse, Ricky’s far reaching influence on music, theatre, architecture, film, literature, mental illness, Satanism, Homosexuality, and rough sex.
Opera Director and Detroit Opera Artistic Director Yuval Sharon begins his recent book A New Philosophy of Opera by imagining a future – some forty to fifty years from now – in which opera ceases to exist as an art form.
Vishnevskaya writes rather as she sings.
Antonio Pappano leads a performance recorded in London last month
Asmik Grigorian pulls a hat trick in Puccini‘s triple bill recorded (and reviewed) last month in Paris
With tenth anniversary productions of Fellow Travelers, the heart wrenching gay romance opera by composer Gregory Spears and librettist Greg Pierce, due to grace several major U.S. companies next season, what better way to commemorate Pride Month than by reading Thomas Mallon’s 2007 historical novel on which it’s based?
Talk of the Town
The Talk of the Town
A favorite bass performance from La Grunowa
A favorite bass performance from La Grunowa
Tancredi Pasero is so noble in mien and rich-voiced here, a perfect complement to Caniglia’s earthy Leonora who honestly charts the movement from despair to fervent, transcendent faith in this duet.
Tancredi Pasero is so noble in mien and rich-voiced here, a perfect complement to Caniglia’s earthy Leonora who honestly charts the movement from despair to fervent, transcendent faith in this duet.
The Talk of the Town
A favorite bass performance from Cornelia
A favorite bass performance from Cornelia
I don’t know if I’ll ever hear as great a performance as René Pape‘s Gurnemanz.
I don’t know if I’ll ever hear as great a performance as René Pape‘s Gurnemanz.
The Talk of the Town
A favorite bass performance from Bere Wendriner
A favorite bass performance from Bere Wendriner
Cesare Siepi and Giulio Neri give a reference rendition of the Grand Inquisitor scene.
Cesare Siepi and Giulio Neri give a reference rendition of the Grand Inquisitor scene.
The Talk of the Town
A favorite bass performance from Ivy Lin
A favorite bass performance from Ivy Lin
Not much to say here. Legendary bass Mark Reizen was born in the USSR and thus never got to tour much to the west.
Not much to say here. Legendary bass Mark Reizen was born in the USSR and thus never got to tour much to the west.
The Talk of the Town
A favorite bass performance from Krunoslav
A favorite bass performance from Krunoslav
Boris Christoff’s Procida (along with Cerquetti’s Elena) lifts Mario Rossi’s RAI Torino Vespri to distinction.
Boris Christoff’s Procida (along with Cerquetti’s Elena) lifts Mario Rossi’s RAI Torino Vespri to distinction.
The Talk of the Town
A favorite bass performance from Michael Landman-Karny
A favorite bass performance from Michael Landman-Karny
If I must choose a single bass performance, it is still Boris Christoff’s Boris Godunov.
If I must choose a single bass performance, it is still Boris Christoff’s Boris Godunov.
Two women singing an operatic love duet is virtually an everyday occurrence, but two men? Not so much.
Julian Budden‘s masterful, three-volume analysis of the entire Verdi oeuvre is fascinating reading.
Contrasting approaches to Regie duke it out in Cavalleria rusticana & Pagliacci and Rusalka in Munich
Krzysztof Warlikowski‘s Der Rosenkavalier at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées surpasses even Nigel Wilkinson‘s high ‘WTF threshhold’
Although presented as an overview of the performance of Italian opera from the first half of the 19th century, Divas and Scholars is really an impassioned defense of musicology as a discipline and of Italian opera as a subject worthy of scholarly attention.
In a satanic panic, this week Chris’s Cache presents trio of performances of Mefistofele
Eli Jacobson on a luscious evening of early Strauss with Guntram at Carnegie Hall