Do it for the Graham
Happy 64th birthday mezzo-soprano Susan Graham
Recent Stories
Ariodante
Federico Maria Sardelli conducts Cecilia Molinari, Teresa Iervolino, Francesca Lombardi Mazzulli, Theodora Raftis, and Manuel Amati in a live broadcast from the Festival della Valle D’Itria in Martina Franca
Memoirs of a geisha
Born on this day in 1909 soprano Licia Albanese
Norma
Fabio Luisi conducts Jacquelyn Wagner, Valentina Farcas, Airam Hernández, and Goran Juric in a live broadcast from the Festival della Valle D’Itria in Martina Franca
Mighty monster
Born on this day in 1936 soprano Ursula Schröder-Feinen
Das Rheingold
Antonio Pappano conducts Christopher Maltman, Christopher Purves, Sean Panikkar, Marina Prudenskaya, Kiandra Howarth, and Wiebke Lehmkuhl in a performance recorded in London last fall
Le nozze di Figaro
Gábor Takács-Nagy conducts Peter Mattei, Golda Schultz, Tommaso Barea, Anna El-Khashem, and Rebecka Wallroth in a live performance from the Verbier Festival
Così fan tutte
Philippe Jordan conducts Federica Lombardi, Emily D’Angelo, Peter Kellner, Filipe Manu, Kate Lindsey, and Christopher Maltman in a performance from last month in Vienna
Mourning wood
Born on this day in 1938 actresses Natalie Wood and Diana Rigg
Florence and the machine
Born on this day in 1868 soprano Florence Foster Jenkins
Written in the tsars
Not so many live primetime Bolshoi Opera performances were recorded, but when the company went on tour it always brought its very best singers, and often pirates were there to capture them.
Picker and chooser
Happy 70th birthday composer Tobias Picker
Sound baths
Born on this day in 1914 soprano Eleanor Steber
Harem scarem
On this day in 1782 Mozart‘s Die Entführung aus dem Serail premiered in Vienna
If you’re going through hell
The rule that governs Dante’s Inferno is called the “contrapasso” – that every sinner is given a punishment in poetic proportion to their crime.
One who or that which sheds its skin
Happy 44th birthday to Broadway’s Laura Benanti
Smiles of a summer birthday
Born on this day in 1918 director and screenwriter Ingmar Bergman
Madama Butterfly
Daniele Rustioni conducts Ermonela Jaho, Adam Smith, Mihoko Fujimura, and Lionel Lhote in a slightly delayed broadcast of Andrea Breth‘s production from Aix-en-Provence
Così fan tutte
A performance recorded earlier this month in London featuring Golda Schultz, Samantha Hankey, Daniel Behle, Andrè Schuen, Gerald Finley, and Jennifer France conducted by Alexander Soddy
Classics never get old
Born on this day in 1924 tenor Carlo Bergonzi
Samson
Raphaël Pichon conducts the Pygmalion ensemble and Jarrett Ott, Jacquelyn Stucker, Lea Desandre, and Nahuel Di Pierro in Claus Guth‘s revivification of Rameau and Voltaire‘s lost opera live from Aix-en-Provence
Fjord technique
Born on this day in 1895 soprano Kirsten Flagstad
Iphigénie en Aulide et en Tauride
A broadcast of Dmitri Tcherniakov‘s back-to-back Gluck productions from Aix-en-Provence featuring Corinne Winters, Russell Braun, Véronique Gens, Florian Sempey, Stanislas de Barbeyrac, and Alexandre Duhamel with Le Concert d’Astrée conducted by Emmanuelle Haïm
Breaking boundaries and glasses
Born on this day in 1925 soprano Mattiwilda Dobbs…