Alexander Köpeczi, currently plying leading roles in two operas in Santa Fe and, rumor has it, the life of one prominent soprano, is the object of this week’s Grand Tier Grab Bag.
After success at the Met as Turandot and before a historic Medea, soprano Anna Pirozzi talks to Harry Rose about her voice, her repertoire, and where her “second explosion of career” is taking her.
Anna Pirozzi makes a welcome return to the Metropolitan Opera, but Turandot remains as thorny as ever.
Christopher Corwin surveys the three Traviata casts — led by Lisette Oropesa, Rosa Feola, and Ermonela Jaho — at the Met this spring.
I feel that the best years of Maria Callas’s vocalità, when we hear such a unique freedom and generosity in her singing, were captured in her early recordings.
A strong revival of Eugene Onegin at the Metropolitan Opera and a recital by Benjamin Bernheim offered the chance to hear “Kuda, kuda” twice in two days.
Ahead of his first season as the Music & Artistic Director of the New York Philharmonic, how much longer can — and should — Gustavo Dudamel stay quiet about the situation in his native Venezuela?
Ahead of their opening in Don Carlo in Dallas tonight, Christopher Corwin chats with Nicole Car and Étienne Dupuis — and offers a special edition of Chris’s Cache!
Caitlin Vincent‘s new book Opera Wars paints a persuasive picture of the problems facing opera today, though her solutions leave something to be desired.
Parterre Box highlights two recent Verdi Requiems of interest with a pair of Libera mes from Asmik Grigorian and Anna Netrebko.
Ivy Lin searches for a slam dunk version of Elvira’s Mad Scene from I puritani in the latest “Perspectives on an Aria.”
An incoherent production of Ruslan and Lyudmila at the Hamburg State Opera may dispense with the fantastical, but Glinka‘s magic remains.
Anna Netrebko managed to debut a new role in Naples earlier this month — Amelia in Un ballo in maschera — and this week’s Grand Tier Grab Bag features her in the complete second Act of her first performance.
Jonas Kaufmann has a new lieder album called Doppelgänger, but the contents of the album vary depending on how you purchase it.
It’s Norma, darling. We know.
Chris’s Cache would argue that Prokofiev’s Betrothal in a Monastery is a much more enjoyable alternative to the pandemic-canceled Barrie Kosky The Fiery Angel
It may be blasphemy to admit—particularly this month—but usually I can either take or leave Donizetti’s serious operas. However, I love the composer in comic mode, so Chris’s Cache runs with that sentiment in offering three recordings of Don Pasquale.
One of my favorite scenes from Donizetti is the Act I finale from Anna Bolena.
Some people were introduced to the art form listening to the Met’s NBC broadcasts on a glowing tube radio or watching acid-trip animated adaptations on the BBC or seeing Elmer Fudd sing, “Kill the Wabbit.” I came to opera through simulated drive-by shootings soundtracked by The Marriage of Figaro.
In 2011, Sondra Radvanovsky‘s Tosca proved promising; fourteen years later, it was absolutely magnificent, a completely satisfying musical and dramatic embodiment of a challenging role by an artist at the peak of her powers.
Patrick Mack reviews yet another Puccini album from Jonas Kaufmann
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.
As for complete recordings of Il trovatore, which was discussed at some length last week, there are at least 200 of them, both studio and live.
When asked to express some “thoughts” here about Verdi’s Il trovatore, my immediate thought was “hmm… not a lot to think about there.”
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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