The second installment of Lyric’s Ring Cycle proved an evening of glorious singing, moving drama, great conducting and orchestral playing.
So, how excited are you to read another piece about the Mary Zimmerman Rusalka?
With a cast of stellar singers and uneven direction by Mary Zimmerman, Dvorák’s Rusalka debuts in a new production at the Metropolitan Opera.
Lyric Opera of Chicago rose to the challenges mightily in its first-ever performance of Les Troyens.
Die Meistersinger is a bold stroke of programming, in a not particularly exciting way.
Töt erst sein Weib!” shrieks Anja Kampe as Leonore during the very first moments of Andreas Homoki’s ingenious production of Beethoven’s only opera, Fidelio, at Opernhaus Zürich.
Throw in a trio of murders and a healthy splash of vodka and you have, more or less, the plot of Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk.
Although Walter Braunfels was among those German composers whose music was banned in their home country after 1933, and whose political rehabilitiation in 1945 was not accompanied by a commensurate revival of his music, his 1920 opera Die Vögel should need no special pleading on musical or dramatic grounds. Though Braunfels is traditionally described as…
The annual Richard Tucker gala came and went at Avery Fisher Hall with the usual quota of gaffes, wardrobe malfunctions, no-shows, too-much-shows, substitutions and surprise guests (well, guest). And sandwiched between the routine, the egocentric and the just plain dull were moments of true dementia, the moments that we melomanes live and die for. Most…
I was there in the house and it was a good night. I still think that Mattila and the production were fresher in 2004 with a wider range of colors and dynamics. However, she didn’t sound frayed or at the end of her rope. Some of the louder high notes can get a blanched quality…
Cher public, those of you who have written to La Cieca wondering at the frequency Anthony Tommasini uses the word “strapping” to describe opera singers of the male persuasion — well, wonder no more. According to the New York Times archives, Tony has flogged his favorite modifer no fewer than 44 times in the past…
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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