Baby Bjoner
Born on this day in 1927 soprano Ingrid Bjoner.
Recent Stories
My Verona
It surprises even me how some operas have eluded me in live performance even after lo, these many years. One of them is Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette.
Next to godliness
Washington National Opera rounded out its season opening weekend with a one-night-only performance entitled “Gods & Mortals: A Celebration of Wagner” the evening after the premiere of its new production of Fidelio.
Thunder from down under
Born on this day in 1926 soprano Joan Sutherland
Ainadamar
Miguel Harth-Bedoya leads Angel Blue, Elena Villalón, Daniela Mack, and Alfredo Tejada in Osvaldo Golijov and David Henry Hwang‘s opera
Spanish mains
Andy Knapp recently wrote enthusiastically about a 1973 Met pirate recoding of Il Trovatore starring Montserrat Caballé, Viorica Cortez, Plácido Domingo, and Robert Merrill. Chris’s Cache today shares that recording, as well another Met in-house starring the same soprano, tenor and baritone in Un Ballo in Maschera from several years earlier.
Laufe wie eine Ägypterin
On this day in 1928 the American premiere of Richard Strauss‘s Die Ägyptische Helena at the Met. Maria Jeritza was the Helena.
A Requiem for the Country?
Michael Steinberg on Riccardo Muti, fascism, and who speaks through the collective voice of the Verdi Requiem.
Actress of protest
Ainadamar functions on two levels: as a defiant dance against fascist totalitarianism and as an exaltation of the diva.
A diletti sempre nuovi
On this day in 1883 the Metropolitan Opera presented its very first Traviata. Marcella Sembrich is Violetta
The cheese stands alone
Strike Up the Band! cried the brothers Gershwin (and book-writers George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind) in the first of their three satirical, vaguely political operettas—sort of jazz Gilbert & Sullivan—that they dreamed up in the late 1920s.
Tenue farfalla
A revival of Huang Ruo’s M. Butterfly, a co-production between the Barbican and BBC Symphony Orchestra, landed in London last week.
Pole of the audience
Happy 52nd birthday baritone Mariusz Kwiecien
Mitridate, re di Ponto
A performance from Boston recorded earlier this fall and reviewed here
Norma conquest
Born on this day in 1801 composer Vincenzo Bellini
Andrea Chénier
A performance from Théâtre des Champs-Elysées recorded earlier this month
First things first, I’m the realist
Born on this day in 1906, film, stage and opera director and designer Luchino Visconti
Neither fish nor fowl
Nigel Wilkinson reviews Kris Defoort‘s kaleidoscopic, unsettling new opera in Brussels.
Tucker and roll
The Richard Tucker Foundation Gala has always been a big annual celebration of the voice with an emphasis on big-voiced singers in big repertoire (not much Wagner usually, though…). Like so many reliable operatic institutions it has struggled for survival after the pandemic.
Tristan und Isolde, Act II
Lise Davidsen takes her first sip of Liebestrank in a live broadcast from Munich
Angel on my shoulder
Born on this day in 1923 soprano Victoria de los Angeles
The chimes of midnight
Aside from a tour with the LSO this spring, this was, I believe, the only time Antonio Pappano would be conducting in the US this season. This made the concert at Symphony Hall a real treat.