Jessye Norman really embraces elements of the song falling somewhere between classical art song and popular ballad.
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‘s presence on an unfortunate broadcast of Tosca from Tanglewood last week prompts us at the Box to share clips of his work over the past few weeks
Sitting in Park Avenue Armory last week for the American debut of baritone Konstantin Krimmel, the rush of joy I felt was two-fold.
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.
Michael Anthonio crunches the numbers on San Francisco Opera’s recent seasons and goes straight to the top to General Director Matthew Shilvock for a look at where SF Opera has been and where it’s headed
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.
Opera house versions of Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd featuring Bryn Terfel / Judith Christin and Thomas Allen / Felicity Palmer.
Sweeney Todd is by any measure a triumphant show, the kind that makes an audience understand why Broadway is American theater’s gold standard
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.
“Opera needs a reset. We think there needs to be a fundamental shift in the ecology.”
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.
On this day in 1998 the Metropolitan Opera presented a new production of Le nozze di Figaro featuring Cecilia Bartoli as Susanna.
It was a meaty program. But both singers had the chops for it.
During the 70s, Kiri Te Kanawa, particularly singing Mozart, became one of my favorite singers.
Grab a fuzzy robe, a hot toddy, and a Wales guidebook, then sink blissfully into your couch for Bryn Terfel’s Christmas concert for the Met’s Live in Concert Series.
Stephen Sondheim turns 90 on Sunday, prompting Trove Thursday to present his most “operatic” work, Sweeney Todd, in a rare 2002 performance with Christine Baranski and Brian Stokes Mitchell as the murderous duo.
I never imagined I’d see such a rote park-and-bark Wagner production created in 2020!
Verdi’s Giovanna d’Arco in a rare NYC concert performance with Margaret Price, Carlo Bergonzi and Sherrill Milnes.
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
“Trove Thursday” pays tribute to Dmitri Hrovostovsky with a broadcast of his final new role, Rubinstein’s The Demon.
For those who thought opera to be a rare enough commodity that there shouldn’t be duels, Saturday night in the Berkshires offered the odd rebuttal.
A poster outside Carnegie Hall proclaimed “Mahler Well Met” and to some degree it proved to be true.
Can it all be true? She did what? He said what?
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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