Nothing makes me feel better than Der Rosenkavalier
Der Rosenkavalier is a three-hour meditation on nostalgia. What could be better to bathe in?
By Ben Miller
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Carlos Kleiber
28 pieces since 2007 — at 5 companies, most often at Metropolitan Opera.
28
pieces
5
companies
20
years
Change my mind about the Toscanini Bohème
It’s like making love with someone whose rap never ceases—and includes “helpful suggestions” about how you can be improving your game.
By Peter Russell
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Duet to me one more time
Patrick Mack reviews yet another Puccini album from Jonas Kaufmann
A divided duty
Today’s Chris’s Cache features live recordings of Otello most noteworthy for their Desdemonas: (in chronological order) Teresa Stratas, Julia Varady, Eva Marton and Karita Mattila.
Behind the mask
Un ballo in maschera—but instead of a tragedy, an opera buffa—and in Danish?
Out of the repast
The entire dinner was spent discussing conductors.
Suspended in time
You know in some of those old Jeanette MacDonald movies where she plays a prima donna and receives applause in a public setting? That’s just what happened when the three of us walked into that restaurant, one patron calling out “Brava!”
Quicksilver princess
Trove Thursday remembers Edita Gruberová with live recordings of two of the three operas I heard her perform at the Met: a 1985 Munich La Traviata with Neil Shicoff and Wolfgang Brendel conducted by Carlos Kleiber and an I Puritani from Vienna 1994 featuring two other artists who recently left us too soon: Marcello Giordani and Dmitri Hvorostovsky.
Have yourself a merry little widow
Trove Thursday follows tradition and bids farewell to 2020 with an operetta: Lehár’s Die Lustige Witwe starring Edda Moser as a most commanding Hanna Glawari!
Tusk to tusk
Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana has always been a particular favorite, although I’ve only seen it staged once (and that by an amateur company the details of which I share spare you all, save to note that dinner was served during the performance.)
In memoriam Mirella Freni
Today’s Trove Thursday was originally scheduled for February 27, which would have been Mirella Freni’s 85th birthday, but instead we remember today the beloved soprano who passed away this past weekend in Puccini.
Bass instinct
Günther Groissböck’s ridiculously entertaining Baron Ochs and Sir Simon Rattle’s enthralling conducting soared highest during a mostly excellent revival of Der Rosenkavalier.
The other woman
I can’t think of an opera this year that I’ve enjoyed as much as Tuesday’s Met Macbeth, thanks especially to the smashing house debut of Italian soprano Anna Pirozzi as its blazing Madame M.
Bolder sister
Brigitte Fassbaender‘s sound is piquant and, I’d hazard to guess, instantly recognizable to anyone familiar with her work.
Man of the camellias
Tuesday the Met unveils its sixth new production of La Traviata since moving to Lincoln Center.
O sink hernieder, Nacht der Lenny
Well here we are, beloveds, still swathed in the warm glow of the Leonard Bernstein centennial. Box sets abound like bunnies in a hutch.
The best of everything
Munich’s Bayerische Staatsoper’s victory lap at Carnegie Hall concluded Thursday night with a sumptuous Der Rosenkavalier spectacularly conducted by Kirill Petrenko
Laughing song
It can be confidently asserted that Edita Gruberova is one opera’s most gifted comediennes.
Carlos at the Bat
“Trove Thursday” celebrates with Carlos Kleiber conducting Johann Strauss, Jr.’s Die Fledermaus.
Debuts and farewells
Arabella with Wolfgang Sawallisch conducting a prime-time 1980s Munich cast.
And three for Mahler
A poster outside Carnegie Hall proclaimed “Mahler Well Met” and to some degree it proved to be true.
And in the ‘how’
Our selected Rosenkavalier video overview closes out the 20th-century selections, crosses the millennial mark, and includes the first of our performances to depart from the opera’s prescribed 18th-century setting.
Ladies in their sensitivities
As someone who thinks Verdi is the greatest composer who ever lived and who feels pretty meh about Mozart, I expected to love the Verdi and be bored by the Mozart. I wasn’t far wrong.
The music lovers
The curious things about accepted wisdom is that sometimes it’s correct.