Recent Stories
Anna Caterina Antonacci
An intriguing recital program live from Rome with Donald Sulzen
I’ll take the fall
The days are getting shorter, but you can keep the prattle going this fall’s Talk of the Town! You will, you can, you must join in the discussion about: Great mezzo soprano performances (October),
Gained in translation (November), Teleport me back to… (December).
Let’s get metaphysical
Last Thursday evening, pure virtuosity was on display at the Veterans’ Room of the Park Avenue Armory, courtesy of soprano Barbara Hannigan and pianist Bertrand Chamayou.
Streich the harp and join the chorus
Born on this day in 1920 soprano Rita Streich with music for the holidays
El Niño: Nativity Reconsidered
A performance recorded earlier this month in Munich of American Modern Opera Company’s take on John Adams‘s oratorio
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.