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Lise Davidsen is pregnant with twins!
Nothing to add here – Just heavenly singing from one of my all-time favorites.
Target Margin Theater proudly boasts that Show/Boat: A River, its small-scale and bare-bones staging of Show Boat (at the Skirball Center on Washington Square through the 26th), is a “bold reimagining” of the classic Jerome Kern & Oscar Hammerstein show, a “new adaptation that explores America’s transformation from the Jim Crow 1880s to the Chicago of the Great Migration to the challenges of today,” but I don’t see it.
Sabine Devieilhe sings a lot of stellar Mozart — Ilia, Susanna, Blonde, a fierce Queen of the Night — but it’s her 2015 concert-aria recording, featuring hubby Raphael Pichon and his period ensemble Pygmalion, to which I return most often. Stick around until the VERY end of the final track for an ass-kicking surprise. (Or should I say…ass-licking? ;)
Seven years ago, Trove Thursday presented an anthology of sixteen Mozart soprano concert arias. In 2025, Chris’s Cache adds to this month’s Mozart-fest with a deep dive into three of the most celebrated of those works: Vorrei spiegarvi, oh Dio!; Bella mia fiamma; and Ch’io mi scordi di te.
The combination of a young opera director who is a little bonkers and a seasoned Mozart soprano (this was Lenneke Ruiten‘s 13th Mozart role on stage) resulted in one of the best performances of Nozze di Figaro I’ve ever seen.
Christopher Cerrone and Stephanie Fleischmann‘s opera at the Prototype Festival re-sets Rashomon in the Pacific Northwest and binds its characters into a hellish cycle of violence with a dark, hypnotic score
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
Don’t cry because it’s over
Don’t cry because it’s over
Grand Tier Grab Bag hearkens back to the days when Sondra Radvanovsky — who is singing no Verdi at all next season — seemed like the Verdi soprano of reference.
Grand Tier Grab Bag hearkens back to the days when Sondra Radvanovsky — who is singing no Verdi at all next season — seemed like the Verdi soprano of reference.
Grand Tier Grab Bag
Rizzin’ to the occasion
Rizzin’ to the occasion
Parterre Box features the Met’s current Eugene Onegin, Iurii Samoilov, in a performance of Rossini ahead of a return to Pesaro this summer.
Parterre Box features the Met’s current Eugene Onegin, Iurii Samoilov, in a performance of Rossini ahead of a return to Pesaro this summer.
Grand Tier Grab Bag
When they go low
When they go low
Nostalgic for bass month, Parterre Box offers excerpts from two young basses to watch: Giorgi Manoshvili and Patrick Guetti.
Nostalgic for bass month, Parterre Box offers excerpts from two young basses to watch: Giorgi Manoshvili and Patrick Guetti.
Grand Tier Grab Bag
Nailin’ the coughin’
Nailin’ the coughin’
Rosa Feola, still scheduled for a run of performances as Violetta in New York this spring, is the subject of this week’s Grand Tier Grab Bag.
Rosa Feola, still scheduled for a run of performances as Violetta in New York this spring, is the subject of this week’s Grand Tier Grab Bag.
Grand Tier Grab Bag
Landing the plane
Landing the plane
With Nixon, Klinghoffer, and Andris Nelsons on the mind, Parterre Box offers a recording of the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s recent John Adams outing.
With Nixon, Klinghoffer, and Andris Nelsons on the mind, Parterre Box offers a recording of the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s recent John Adams outing.
Grand Tier Grab Bag
Le galant tireur
Le galant tireur
American tenor Charles Castronovo performs a bit of Weber’s Der Freischütz ahead of the opportunity to hear Berlioz‘s take on the score at Carnegie Hall next week.
American tenor Charles Castronovo performs a bit of Weber’s Der Freischütz ahead of the opportunity to hear Berlioz‘s take on the score at Carnegie Hall next week.
As most of you probably know, I worship at the altar of Moffo the way some worship Callas. She has so many great complete recordings, including Falstaff, Luisa Miller, Lucia, Rigoletto, etc. But one of her very best is this Nozze. Carlo Maria Giulini leads an absolutely perfect cast.
In 2011, Sondra Radvanovsky‘s Tosca proved promising; fourteen years later, it was absolutely magnificent, a completely satisfying musical and dramatic embodiment of a challenging role by an artist at the peak of her powers.
Nadine Sierra, Javier Camarena, and Artur Rucinski lead a live broadcast from Barcelona.
I was so beguiled by Erika Baikoff when I saw her perform at the Sag Harbor Song Festival back in September. Such a lovely and musical voice that just flows and when she sang this, she got mid-note applause during the final sustained B.
Sometimes–to negotiate the High Gee!s, as it were–you just need to call in Edda Moser.
Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, Paris 1980: Georg Solti, Lucia Popp, José Van Dam, Gundula Janowitz, Gabriel Bacquier, Frederica Von Stade.
In the “tormented writers’” room, two actors in goth makeup and bride-of-Frankenstein wigs are clacking on typewriters and throwing crumpled papers on the floor.
Talk of the Town
The Talk of the Town
A favorite Verdi performance from Lou Ann Darras
A favorite Verdi performance from Lou Ann Darras
I have very few opportunities to see real-life opera divas, but when Natalie Dessay chose to debut her first Traviata at Santa Fe, there was no way I was going to miss it.
I have very few opportunities to see real-life opera divas, but when Natalie Dessay chose to debut her first Traviata at Santa Fe, there was no way I was going to miss it.
The Talk of the Town
A favorite Verdi performance from Astyanax
A favorite Verdi performance from Astyanax
The air held a real charge that night in SF’s War Memorial Opera House.
The air held a real charge that night in SF’s War Memorial Opera House.
The Talk of the Town
A favorite Verdi performance from Ivy Lin
A favorite Verdi performance from Ivy Lin
This is one of those rare performances that makes you believe that everything Verdi was greater Way Back When.
This is one of those rare performances that makes you believe that everything Verdi was greater Way Back When.
The Talk of the Town
A favorite Verdi performance from Mister Snow
A favorite Verdi performance from Mister Snow
Nothing prepared me for the Soviero experience
Nothing prepared me for the Soviero experience
The Talk of the Town
A favorite Verdi performance from Tildy Diva
A favorite Verdi performance from Tildy Diva
A well-known Met Aïda with a starry cast from 1967 is TildyDiva’s Favorite Verdi Performance
A well-known Met Aïda with a starry cast from 1967 is TildyDiva’s Favorite Verdi Performance
The Talk of the Town
A favorite Verdi performance from Arrigo
A favorite Verdi performance from Arrigo
My favorite Verdi performance is Claudio Abbado Don Carlo opening of the Scala.
My favorite Verdi performance is Claudio Abbado Don Carlo opening of the Scala.
The New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players are celebrating their 50th Anniversary Season presenting Ruddigore (last month), The Pirates of Penzance (first two weekends in January), and Iolanthe (on its way in April).
Baroque specialist Ottavio Dantone leads a live video broadcast from the Teatro Alighieri in Ravenna
Sing High, Sing Low – My favorite Fiordiligi
In Munich, performances by 97-year-old Herbert Blomstedt and 32-year-old Thomas Guggeis show the city’s orchestral ensembles at their best
I’ve shared this before but this is one of the most perfect pieces of Mozart singing and acting I’ve ever come across.
Given the keen interest in recent posts of Met pirates of Montserrat Caballé in Verdi, Chris’s Cache concludes its trio with the Spanish soprano’s Met Violetta, along with additional Met in-house recordings of Virginia Zeani, Pilar Lorengar, Jeanette Pilou, and Joan Sutherland as Verdi’s doomed courtesan.
At the time of the recording’s release, Kathleen Battle was getting established.
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