Wien disposition
Following classic recordings documenting the work of Karl Böhm and Herbert von Karajan. Orfeo’s 150 Years Wiener Staatsoper box moves on to new releases that are seeing their first incarnation on an officially available disc.
Antonio Pappano
63 pieces since 2006 — at 12 companies, most often at Royal Opera House.
63
pieces
12
companies
21
years
By company
Royal Opera House 16
Royal Opera House, Covent Garden 3
Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia 2
Metropolitan Opera 2
Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie 2
London Symphony Orchestra 1
Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia 1
Royal Opera, Covent Garden 1
Salzburg Easter Festival 1
Salzburg Festival 1
Staatsoper Berlin 1
Wiener Staatsoper 1
General Elektra
Nina Stemme’s Elektra is familiar to me in three different incarnations.
Uphill climb
The Albanian soprano Ermonela Jaho is surely the reason that Covent Garden has made a commercial release of this “Live to Cinemas” relay from March of 2017.
Burning woman
I count myself as privileged to have witnessed Götterdämmerungat the Royal Opera House during this season’s revival of Keith Warner’s Ring.
Lady first
This revival of Phyllida Lloyd’s 2002 Macbeth production was probably the most anticipated event of the Royal Opera House 2017/2018 season, due mostly to Anna Netrebko’s return to Covent Garden after a three-year absence.
Digging in the dirt
Even those of us who consider Guillaume Tell Rossini’s greatest opera understand why it has not been his most frequently staged.
Queen of the damned
“Semiramide—a better opera than this dude expected!”
Double Doge dare
The second DVD/Blu-ray with Plácido Domingo as Verdi’s other beleaguered Doge, Francesco in I due Foscari.
Abendstern
“Trove Thursday” celebrates the thrilling Finnish soprano Karita Matilla in the ultimate diva role.
Leaving blood on the shirt
The debate over live transmissions of opera to cinemas in HD isn’t going to go away.
Rooting for the underdoge
“Take a good deal of trouble with it, because it is a fine subject, delicate and full of pathos.”
Mourning Wood
Sometimes when you find the club that will have you as a member, you do not easily give up your spot.
Montag mit Marguerite
Berlioz apparently couldn’t decide if his was an oratorio or an opera, so he labeled it a “légende dramatique.” Since its 1846 Paris premiere, it remains on both opera stages and in concert halls, with its first Met staging in 1906.
At sunset
Sunday afternoon’s all-Richard Strauss concert served as a de facto commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the debut of Renée Fleming, long one of the house’s biggest stars.
The rules of attraction
Is Manon Lescaut a cold, clinical tale of the splendors and pitfalls of transactional sex, or is it a romantic Italian opera at its most lush and melodic?
A Pole in the head
Enthusiasm is contagious–you have to cover up carefully lest it make you sick.
Veiled threat
Angela Gheorghiu‘ s idiosyncratically alluring, sometimes maddening, always fascinating Floria Tosca inevitably became the evening’s unmissable raison d’être.
“What gets me…!”
What gets me, La Cieca snaps, is not so much that Levine bit off more than he could chew, because that’s old news.
Awakenings
There is a simple elegance to the single-composer recital album format. For the listener in the mood for, say, Puccini, it’s a chance to delve into his music without any pesky interruptions by those other guys like Verdi or Massenet. And if one is also in the mood for a particular singer’s art, then the […]
A desert breeze whispering a lullaby
The studio opera recording is a rare beast these days and its arrival always a cause for celebration.
Grail mix
Contemporary stagings of Parsifal tend to be spare, abstract affairs scrubbed of religious associations, knights in armor and, sometimes, a grail.
Bows and arias
Whenever opera-lovers are canvassed about what neglected operas they hunger to see revived, the resulting lists inevitably feature a goodly number of grand operas, those once wildly popular monstrosities–particularly by Meyerbeer–written primarily for Paris in the mid-19th century.
Auto-da-fair
The Salzburg Festival has long had the image of this place where for a little over a month, the very best singers are brought together with the very best conductors and the very best directors to create the very best productions the opera world has to offer.
Where the boys are
When Norman Lebrecht is declaring on an almost daily basis that classical music is dead, it’s perhaps heartening that four of today’s prominent tenors have recently released what might be called fluff/vanity albums.