I am woman, hear me roar
Happy 68th birthday director and administrator Francesca Zambello
Happy 68th birthday director and administrator Francesca Zambello
Born on this day in 1900 composer Ernst Krenek
Don’t cry for me, Birgit Nilsson
Born on this day in 1862 composers Claude Debussy
Chris’s Cache celebrates the 91st birthday today of Janet Baker, one of my favorite singers.
Happy 91st birthday mezzo-soprano Dame Janet Baker
You probably won’t leave Idomeneo ready to burst out in song, but what the opera lacks in melodic immediacy it makes up for in sheer virtuosity.
On this day in 1828 Rossini’s Le comte Ory premiered in Paris
Karina Canellakis conducts Rachel Willis-Sørensen, Paula Murrihy, Matthew Rose, Ying Fang, and David Portillo in a performance recorded last month at The Santa Fe Opera
Jay Scheib’s Augmented-Reality Parsifal is a cautionary reminder that technological innovation shouldn’t absolve directors from the exacting work of deriving intelligent and fascinating theater from the source material.
Born on this day in 1883 designer Coco Chanel
Born on this day in 1750 composer Antonio Salieri
Timur Zangiev conducts Sean Panikkar, Peixin Chen, Asmik Grigorian, Violeta Urmana, and Juan Francisco Gatell in a live broadcast from the Salzburg Festival
Giampaolo Bisanti conducts Corinne Winters, Anton Rositskiy, Jana Kurucová, Evgeny Stavinsky, and Nino Surguladze in a performance of Dvorák‘s watery fairy tale recorded in Liège earlier this year
Born on this day in 1686 composer Nicola Porpora
On this day in 1876 Wagner’s Siegfried premiered at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus
Chris’s Cache steps up with a recording of Michael Spyres in Lohengrin, as well as with a capture of Spyres in the title role of a 2017 La Clemenza di Tito.
Happy 68th birthday tenor Bruce Ford
In Nike Wagner’s essay “The Sounding Silence,” the German dramaturge argues that “the longing for deathrepresents the central motif” of her great-grandfather’s opera Tristan und Isolde.
Happy 64th birthdays to soprano Cecilia Gasdia
Happy 76th birthday soprano Kathleen Battle
Jordan de Souza conducts a performance of the latest opera by Gregory Spears and Tracy K. Smith featuring Michael Mayes, Elena Villalón, Jennifer Johnson Cano, Anthony Roth Costanzo, and Greer Grimsley recorded last month at the Santa Fe Opera
At the heart of Tobias Kratzer’s incisively rollicking production of Tannhäuser lies a metanarrative that maps Wagner’s early political and artistic challenges onto its hero’s philosophical struggles.
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