El Niño: Nativity Reconsidered
A performance recorded earlier this month in Munich of American Modern Opera Company’s take on John Adams‘s oratorio
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Seek to set him right
It was, at least, a jolly good show. Whether or not it actually suited Stravinsky’s music or Auden and Kallman’s text, is another question.
Abendsterne
Georg Solti made his Met debut conducting Tannhaüser on this date in 1960.
All the world loves a clown
The court of Mantua has run away to join the circus; Washington, DC and Baltimore’s experimental opera company, IN Series, transformed Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto in a new production set under the big top this winter.
I am always acting
Born on this day in 1899 composer, playwright and actor Noel Coward
Pagliacci
A live opening night broadcast from the Teatro Comunale di Bologna’s temporary home
Il suo mister come mai finì?
Happy 90th birthday soprano Raina Kabaivanska
Grounded
A performance recorded earlier this season in New York
La cenerentola
A performance recorded this spring at the Théâtre du Capitole de Toulouse
La morte è vita bella
On this day in 1918 Puccini’s Il Trittico had its world premiere at the Met
Il cappello di paglia di Firenze
Nino Rota‘s opera in a live performance from Genova
The best way to spread Christmas cheer
Back to Brussels last Sunday for my third new opera of the season (after The Time of our Singing, also at La Monnaie, and Picture a day like this, at the Opéra Comique): Mikael Karlsson’s Fanny and Alexander, with a libretto by Royce Vavrek.
Fanny and Alexander
A live broadcast from Brussels of a new opera by Mikael Karlsson and Royce Vavrek
Ein Gruss vom Himmel
On this day in 1979 mezzo Agnes Baltsa made her Met debut as Octavian.
A foggy lullaby
American opera and its institutions are experiencing an identity crisis. Nowhere is this clearer than in Tazewell Thompson and Jeanine Tesori’s Blue.
Palestrina
A live video broadcast of Pfitzner‘s opera from Vienna
Ma fagli gli occhi azzurri
Born on this day in 1915 singer and actor Frank Sinatra
Tree and tree again
While everyone tries to figure out what on earth Strauss and Hofmannsthal are up to in Die Frau ohne Schatten, now playing at the Met, Chris’s Cache offers a later, simpler, shorter Strauss with three live broadcasts of his “bucolic tragedy” Daphne.
I like the isle of Manhattan
Happy 93rd birthday actress and singer Rita Moreno
Sometimes anonymous
All members of cher public are reminded to submit their most à propos recommendations to start our new regular feature off with gusto
Aces high
On this day in 1910 Puccini“s La fanciulla del west had its world premiere at the Met
‘Tis better to be viol
Here’s the bottom line: at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall stage on December 3, Iestyn Davies and viol consort Fretwork made the sweetest sounds I’ve heard from human beings all year.
Sie ist ein Ungeheuer, deine Tochter
On this day in 1905 Richard Strauss’s Salome premiered in Dresden