Recent Stories
Is Our Own JJ turning Neocon? He certainly has some very positive things to say about the “conservative” Don Carlo in his latest “Rough and Regie” offering! [Musical America] (Photograph: Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera.)
“’Voice’ is a feminine noun is Spanish, and therefore, must be treated with love and attention, like a woman. This is where the secret lies.” [PanArmenian.net]
New York Festival of Song’s Manning the Canon: Songs of Gay Life is a delightfully lighthearted, deeply personal, and colorful recital made of equal parts sex, camp, melancholy, and tenderness. Steven Blier‘s wide-ranging program consists of five sets of songs, each meant to evoke, as per his program notes, “a quintessential moment of a gay…
The Platonic ideal of the barihunk has arrived, and his name is John Chest. The 25-year-old dreamboat is the winner of the 2010 Stella Maris International Vocal Competition, where he sang music by Rossini, Korngold, Schubert, Mendelssohn and Britten. According to a charmingly phrased press release, “Chest was put forward by the Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich,…
“Sombre splendor there is frequently not.” Zachary Woolfe mulls Don Carlo. [New York Observer]
“A book about Mr. Lebrecht’s ‘search for Gustav Mahler,’ as he calls his obsession, this is also a book about Mr. Lebrecht, a far less compelling subject.” [NYT]
German heldentenor and crossover performer Peter Hofmann died yesterday. He was 66.
Controversial diva Marina Poplavskaya is the subject of a profile in the current New Yorker that does not include any bloodhounds snappin’ at her rear end, but that’s about the only life experience omitted. Highlights include the soprano’s lugging a trolley full of luggage across 14 lanes of Buenos Aires traffic following a dispute with…
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
Grand Tier Grab Bag
Grand Tier Grab Bag
Poetic license
Poetic license
Parterre Box shines a light on Liparit Avetisyan, who made his Met debut as Alfredo earlier this spring.
Parterre Box shines a light on Liparit Avetisyan, who made his Met debut as Alfredo earlier this spring.
Grand Tier Grab Bag
Frau Miina-Liisa will es werde Nacht
Frau Miina-Liisa will es werde Nacht
Parterre Box features soprano Miina-Liisa Värelä, making her title role debut in Die Walküre in Munich next week, in a performance of Tristan und Isolde from 2021.
Parterre Box features soprano Miina-Liisa Värelä, making her title role debut in Die Walküre in Munich next week, in a performance of Tristan und Isolde from 2021.
Grand Tier Grab Bag
Lux aeterna luceat eis
Lux aeterna luceat eis
Grand Tier Grab Bag this week honors the late Limmie Pulliam with a bit of his Verdi Requiem.
Grand Tier Grab Bag this week honors the late Limmie Pulliam with a bit of his Verdi Requiem.
Grand Tier Grab Bag
Kathryn the great
Kathryn the great
Parterre Box previews Kathryn Lewek‘s upcoming Salome with clips of her as another unhinged lady of antiquity.
Parterre Box previews Kathryn Lewek‘s upcoming Salome with clips of her as another unhinged lady of antiquity.
Grand Tier Grab Bag
Count your blessings
Count your blessings
Fast-rising Verdi baritone Ariunbaatar Ganbataar is the subject of this week’s Grand Tier Grab Bag.
Fast-rising Verdi baritone Ariunbaatar Ganbataar is the subject of this week’s Grand Tier Grab Bag.
Grand Tier Grab Bag
One man’s Junker
One man’s Junker
Handel’s Deidamia — and one of its current champions, soprano Sophie Junker — are the subject of this week’s Grand Tier Grab Bag.
Handel’s Deidamia — and one of its current champions, soprano Sophie Junker — are the subject of this week’s Grand Tier Grab Bag.
The prolific “Swan of Bergamo” (as he is almost never called) was born November 29, 1797.
The interpretation of Carmen by Latvian mezzo-soprano Elina Garanca has been much debated, many finding her cold and remote, others admiring her subtly smoldering quality. A new Deutsche Grammophon DVD documenting the Met’s January 16, 2010 performances offers us an opportunity to examine the gypsy in close-up. This is certainly not the lusty, passionate, mercurial Carmen…
La Cieca hoped you would have a devil of time with last time’s Regie quiz, but she was wrong. And right, too, of course, since the work in question was Mefistofele. Congratulations to Cara Speme, first to guess, and correct on the first try. More puzzlement after the jump.
“This company premiere features an outstanding cast led by soprano Patricia Racette, ‘the consummate singing actress’ (Chicago Tribune).” [Washington National Opera]
You’ve survived the crowds of Black Friday, but can you face the terrors of Decorator Beige Saturday? Huge savings in every department.
Don Carlo is truly a grand opera, Verdi’s biggest, no matter if it’s the four or five act version. It is a bitch.
The truth, at last: “By Manuela Hoelterhoff and Zinta Lundborg” [Bloomberg]
Chicago’s opera community has been abuzz about this production of Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera ever since the 2010-11 Lyric Opera season was announced. A sumptuous production owned by San Francisco opera, major female stars, a solid male cast of experienced Verdians, and stage direction by the legendary Renata Scotto—what more could one ask?
Talk of the Town
The Talk of the Town
Giannina Arangi-Lombardi never made it to the Met
Giannina Arangi-Lombardi never made it to the Met
Giannina Arangi-Lombardi never sang at the Met.
Giannina Arangi-Lombardi never sang at the Met.
The Talk of the Town
Andrée Esposito and Alain Vanzo should have made it to the Met
Andrée Esposito and Alain Vanzo should have made it to the Met
This Mireille duet unites Andrée Esposito and Alain Vanzo and shows the timbral and stylistic qualities that made them exemplary.
This Mireille duet unites Andrée Esposito and Alain Vanzo and shows the timbral and stylistic qualities that made them exemplary.
The Talk of the Town
Ebe Stignani and Anita Cerquetti should have made it to the Met
Ebe Stignani and Anita Cerquetti should have made it to the Met
Subtlety is for cowards, say the blazing Anita Cerquetti and the blaring Ebe Stignani.
Subtlety is for cowards, say the blazing Anita Cerquetti and the blaring Ebe Stignani.
The Talk of the Town
Sena Jurinac should have made it to the Met
Sena Jurinac should have made it to the Met
Sena Jurinac, a celebrated Mozart and Strauss singer here as the Composer, a signature role.
Sena Jurinac, a celebrated Mozart and Strauss singer here as the Composer, a signature role.
The Talk of the Town
Janet Baker should have made it to the Met
Janet Baker should have made it to the Met
The divine Dame Janet Baker never sang at the Metropolitan, sadly for American audiences.
The divine Dame Janet Baker never sang at the Metropolitan, sadly for American audiences.
The Talk of the Town
Dorothy Maynor should have made it to the Met
Dorothy Maynor should have made it to the Met
We had to wait for Marian Anderson to break the color barrier at the Met and many great Black opera singers never had a chance there.
We had to wait for Marian Anderson to break the color barrier at the Met and many great Black opera singers never had a chance there.
“Il più amato, il più osannato, il solo e unico varietà operistico radiofonico quotidiano,” or, as we call it, La Barcaccia, examined earlier this week “Donne sull’orlo di una crisi di nervi.” The divas on a verge of a nervous breakdown include Cecilia Bartoli and our own Renée Fleming in a (though not the) legendary…
Well, La Cieca thought surely by now someone would have come up with the title of last week’s Regie quiz, but, go figure. Prepare to slap your forehead and yell, “Of course,” because it’s Die Soldaten in a production that’s just opened at De Nederlandse Opera, directed by Willy Decker. Now, this week, La Cieca…
Eyes flash! Fans snap! Petticoats rustle omiously! It’s a full-scale diva catfight online as producer David McVicar lashes out at the “sheer, crass ignorance and spitefulness” of bloggress Intermezzo!
A Netrebko can flutter her wings over a flower at the Vienna Staatsoper and cause an hurricane in Avery Fisher Hall. [Wig & Pen]
“The enigma at the center of the epic was Marina Poplavskaya’s Elizabeth.” [New York Post]
“…whenever he was joined by the baritone Simon Keenlyside, who sang Rodrigo, the Marquis of Posa and Carlo’s devoted friend, Mr. Alagna opened up in every way.” Well, wouldn’t you? [NYT]
“Because the one I had for lunch was delicious.”
Very few things intrigue me as much as analyzing belcanto operas, comparing their several versions and examining the composers’ second thoughts, modifications and revisions that, willingly or unwillingly, they made to their scores. I was already salivating when I heard that the Teatro Comunale di Bologna was going to perform Vincenzo Bellini’s I Puritani in…
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