Recent Stories
Norman Lebrecht wants *you* to fact-check his next column
Braindead coot Norman Lebrecht gets it wrong again.
Like a bird
Born on this day in 1868 soprano Florence Foster Jenkins.
Rule of three
Puccini’s Il trittico was most definitely not an overwhelming success when it received its December 1918 world premiere at the Met.
Ecco il Valhalla!
On this day in 452 Attila laid siege to the metropolis of Aquileia.
Opera Syria
“The music’s fun, but doesn’t Rossini repeat himself?”
In all the music my heart sings to you
Born on this day in 1914 soprano Eleanor Steber.
The intelligent homosexual
Happy 60th birthday playwright Tony Kushner.
What a tale could be told
On this day in 1949 Miss Liberty opened at the Imperial Theater, to run 308 performances.
Woman behind bars
“Trove Thursday” presentsFerdinando Paër’s 1804 Leonora ossia L’Amore coniugale.
And the award goes to…
On this day in 1668 Antonio Cesti‘s opera Il pomo d’oro premiered in Vienna.
And now a word from our sponsor
La Cieca sends kudos our most faithful benefactors.
“I never expect to see a perfect work from an imperfect man”
On this day in 1804 Former United States Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton died after being shot in a pistol duel by Vice President Aaron Burr.
Biblical sense
Shirley Verrett remains one of my all-time favorite artists, and I am pleased to introduce her to my Mixcloud site in one of her parade roles: the femme fatale in Saint-Saëns’ Samson et Dalila.
Northern light
Happy 92nd birthday tenor Nicolai Gedda.
Maralin Niska 1926-2016
Soprano Maralin Niska, a mainstay of New York City Opera and America’s regional opera companies from the 1960s through the 1980s, died at her home in Santa Fe yesterday.
Gut’ Bess’rung dem Meister!
Happy 47th birthday and get well soon tenor Jonas Kaufmann.
Drunk in love
According to my taste, Die Fledermaus is an intoxicating opera
Kavalierbariton
Born on this day in 1929 baritone Eberhard Waechter.
The singer’s art
Call me old fashioned, but when I go to the opera, I go to hear beautiful singing.
“It wasn’t my intention to get notoriety”
On this day in 2009, Zachary Woolfe made his debut as an opera critic in the Observer.