Chris’s Cache features a pair of performances of Iolanta with Tamara Milashkina and Asmik Grigorian
Yes, there were other Giocondas if not of quite the same distinction. Chronologically…
Puccini’s schmaltziest, most melodic, most dramatically limp, most cynical, most obscure mature work
“The mystery of her voice gripped my soul,” Sharpless tells Pinkerton at the beginning of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly. One could say the same thing of Aleksandra Kurzak’s remarkable portrayal of the title role, the main reason to catch the Met’s latest revival.
A revival of Peter Konwitschny’s rightly legendary Don Carlos and Dmitri Tcherniakov’s confounding new Salome: both turned out to be unforgettable!
The Aix festival organized two back-to-back evening concerts dedicated to the Russian masters. One was an embarrassment of Slavic riches, the other… well, just an embarrassment.
Tonight at the Met should have welcomed Barrie Kosky’s production of Prokofiev’s The Fiery Angel; in its absence Trove Thursday steps in with a recent broadcast featuring this summer’s breakout star Ausrine Stundyte as the enigmatic Renata.
Later this month Asmik Grigorian will star in Covent Garden’s new Jenufa, which Trove Thursday anticipates presenting the acclaimed Lithuanian soprano in a broadcast from 2014 of Tchaikovsky’s rare opera The Enchantress (Charodeyka).
Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Die Tote Stadt in a 1967 Vienna broadcast appropriately featuring three American stars: John Alexander, Marilyn Zschau, and George London.
“How far should we give way to grief? How far dare we, without disaster?”
Alban Berg’s compact yet potent oeuvre has long played an outsized role in shaping my understanding of music’s aesthetic evolution.
“Trove Thursday” pays tribute to Dmitri Hrovostovsky with a broadcast of his final new role, Rubinstein’s The Demon.
Opera is about the possibility of transformation. An unassuming woman can walk in through the theater’s stage door and emerge on stage as fiery princess capable of making the walls rattle. Alas, these transformations inevitably fail to stick. Every Turandot must hang up her crown; every Elektra must put down her ax one final time.…
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
×
Sign up for Parterre’s free newsletter.
Exclusive opera reviews, commentary, and top reads
delivered to your email weekly…ish.