As said at the beginning, I implied I’d rather see Don Carlo(s) and listen to Forza.
A snarky commentator might dub last night at the Met “Boris of the divo hair flip” but that would do a disservice to a serious, often effective performance of the challenging original version of Mussorgsky’s masterpiece.
For those pining for Puccini with the Met out of commission. Trove Thursday steps up with the composer’s brief first opera Le Villi with Krassimira Stoyanova, José Cura and Franz Grundheber, led by Simone Young.
For nearly 70 years, New York City was the world capital of concert opera thanks first to the American Opera Society, then to Eve Queler’s Opera Orchestra of New York.
Trove Thursday completes its Prévost–trifecta with Puccini’s Manon Lescaut starring Sondra Radvanovsky and (pre-Met) Aleksandrs Antonenko conducted by Riccardo Chailly plus an added Radvanovsky-Puccini bonus: Suor Angelica.
Yusif Eyvazov dominated Friday’s Met premiere of Pikovaya Dama with a fearless, world-class portrayal that instantly transformed the opera into December’s must-see event.
Austin McCormack‘s lascivious choreography outshone a tepid and tedious staging of Saint-Saëns’s old-testament epic.
At tonight’s performance of Aida at the Met, the Triumphal Scene horses suddenly panicked and tried to bolt from the stage. I can’t say I blame them.
The conclusion of our Fanciulla del West video overview in three parts looks at a trio of performances from the 2010s.
Anna Netrebko is the greatest performing artist singing opera today. Nobody else comes close; she makes me love her in a way that verges on the erotic.
“Trove Thursday” gives a preview of Saint-Saëns’s Samson et Dalila with a broadcast featuring an unexpected temptress—Dolora Zajick—who will celebrate the 30th anniversary of her Met debut next month.
Usually the longer I know a work the more I look forward to rediscovering it, but that’s just not the case with the Verdi Requiem.
From the perspective of current identity politics, Puccini’s Turandot is a disaster of epic proportions.
Maria Agresta‘s delicately-acted, sumptuously-sung seamstress transformed what might have been just an average Wednesday night revival into something finer.
Two years before she brought the role to Wiener Staatsoper in a production somewhat dominated by Jonas Kaufmann, soprano Nina Stemme sang her first-ever Minnie in La fanciulla del West at Stockholm’s Royal Opera.
While the celebrity-studded, expensively-dressed audience gathered for the gala opening of the Metropolitan Opera’s 2015-2016 season seemed genuinely enthralled by Monday evening’s performance of Otello, it was more likely swept away by the power of Verdi’s genius than by Bartlett Sher’s puzzling, inert new production.
Coming from placid, luxurious Geneva, where I am currently living, Berlin felt even more jarring than usual.
Strange as it is to encounter two such disparate works presented with the identical production concept, it’s odder still that the opera you’d think would be the slam dunk is anything but.
It may have taken most of Verdi’s canon to do it, but the “Tutto Verdi” collection finally manages to do justice to Verdi in his last two operas.
Puccini’s evening of one-act operas Il Trittico seems to be riding a wave of popularity over the last few years, with a new production at the Met and several high-profile productions in America and Europe.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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