Drink me
Chris’s Cache offers Nadine Sierra and Xabier Anduaga, the stars of the upcoming production of La sonnambula, in a performance of another favorite bel canto opera
Bryn Terfel
43 pieces since 2006 — in 14 roles, at 8 companies, most often at Metropolitan Opera.
43
pieces
14
roles
8
companies
21
years
By role
Role Dulcamara
Role Escamillo
No way, Don José
Andrea Bocelli is a pop singer, and a wildly successful one at that. So why does he feel compelled to pretend to be a dramatic tenor?
Role Falstaff
Untudored
The three Brownies applying the final touches to a tapestry – the show curtain – depicting an idyllic landscape of Windsor before the music begins are the first indication that this productionof Falstaff does not take place in Elizabethan times.
Role Figaro
“So much for traditional sweetness and charm”
On this day in 1998 the Metropolitan Opera presented a new production of Le nozze di Figaro featuring Cecilia Bartoli as Susanna.
Role Il barone Scarpia
She never sings anything twice
Can it all be true? She did what? He said what?
Role Leporello
After dark
The Canadian Robert Carsen would appear to love the theater to the point of fixation.
Role Mephisto
Back to the future
After putting a hiatus on their awards in 2020 and 2021 (for reasons that are all too well-known to all of us), the Richard Tucker Foundation Gala returned on Sunday evening November 13 honoring soprano Angel Blue the 2022 Award winner.
Role Saul
Sacred raptures cheer my breast
The English Concert’s annual Handel tour brings Solomon conducted by Harry Bicket to the US beginning Sunday March 5. In anticipation, Chris’s Cache offers Solomon plus four other oratorios by the master: Belshazzar, Hercules, Saul and Jephtha, all via broadcasts for which I feel a personal connection.
Role Scarpia
Shocker and awe
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.
E avanti a lui russava tutta Roma
The Met got exactly what it asked for: a safely opulent, resolutely unchallenging Tosca that was far from shabby or little but couldn’t have been less shocking
The woman in white
This new DVD
release from EMI of the Royal Opera’s latest production of Puccini’s Tosca will no doubt be snatched up by hordes of grateful fans around the globe.
Three for the show
Luc Bondy’s Tosca returned to the Met on Wednesday night with an entirely new set of principals and conductor. The new trio of principal singers, all making local role debuts, could not redirect and redesign the production but they could allow their individual talents to outshine their surroundings.
Role Sweeney Todd
Sweeney, supersized
Opera house versions of Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd featuring Bryn Terfel / Judith Christin and Thomas Allen / Felicity Palmer.
They trod a path that many have trod
Sweeney Todd is by any measure a triumphant show, the kind that makes an audience understand why Broadway is American theater’s gold standard
Role The villains
All dolled up
When my editor suggested to me a round-up of my favorite recordings of Jacques Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann I was très, très, intrigued.
Role unknown
Pout and about
I could feel my face (to say nothing of my spirits) sink as I opened an envelope from La Cieca containing a new Decca CD
to review.
Role Wotan
Spy-jo-to-ho!
You really didn’t think your doyenne would let a top-secret dress rehearsal at the Met slip away without getting an exclusive on-the-scene report for you, the cher public? Now, did you? Well, if you did, you’re wrong, because La Cieca’s mole (pictured) has filed the following report:
The Sky People have sent us a message
Great expectations awaited the Met Opera’s new production of Das Rheingold, staged by the ambitious Canadian director Robert Lepage, and rightly so. With a 45-ton set carrying a $16 million price tag, a world-renowned cast, and maestro James Levine celebrating his 40th anniversary on the podium, who wouldn’t be on the edge of his seat as […]
Role Wotan, Wanderer
Def Man Glance
Since 2010 I’ve been reading nothing but horror being heaped upon the Met’s new Ring. It’s been like a cross between a cruise ship size buffet spread of internet snarking and a slasher film re-cast with music critics.
I’ll take the fall
The days are getting shorter, but you can keep the prattle going this fall’s Talk of the Town! You will, you can, you must join in the discussion about: Great mezzo soprano performances (October),
Gained in translation (November), Teleport me back to… (December).
Win a Free Ticket to Opening Night at the Met!
Quinn Kelsey and Lise Davidsen star in the Met's new Macbeth. We're giving away one ticket, so screw your courage to the sticking place and enter now!
