Your alte Jungfer’s requisite Kuschelkatze (pictured) arrived on my doorstep in Mariahilf with the name of Tristan.
“Trove Thursday” offers a Der Fliegende Holländer from New York City Opera featuring the underrated American soprano Johanna Meier.
Shirley Verrett remains one of my all-time favorite artists, and I am pleased to introduce her to my Mixcloud site in one of her parade roles: the femme fatale in Saint-Saëns’ Samson et Dalila.
“Trove Thursday” presents Sena Jurinac‘s radiant portrayal of Janacek’s Jenufa opposite the implacable Kostelnicka of Martha Mödl.
Myto’s transfer of Herbert von Karajan’s star-bedecked 1958 Die Walküre from La Scala gives collectors on a budget access to one of the legendary performances committed to tape.
God, I love that photo of Lisa della Casa. She can sing, too!
It’s time for the annual celebration of the birth of Leonie Rysanek (who, as you know, is your alte Jungfer’s Diva of Divas).
Simply put, Christine Goerke is a stupendous Elektra.
It seems almost comical to think now but the designer-director Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, who died in 1988, was at one time considered the height of regie-theatre scandal.
Herbert von Karajan once said listening to some of his old recordings made him envy painters who could simply burn the pictures they disliked.
The 1965 season was a time of big changes at the Vienna State Opera.
The centennial observances of Gustav Mahler’s death have not turned up a surfeit of newly discovered performances, probably because his symphonies and song cycles have long been a calling card for serious artists and record labels. Though the industry archives may be picked clean, the estates of dead musicians are at least starting to kick…
When a new production of Fidelio premiered at the Met in 1960, the opera had been absent from the repertoire since 1951, the post-war return of Kirsten Flagstad as a still effective Leonore and led by Bruno Walter. In the period between the two productions a new generation of singers had begun to make their…
Five decades before the Met turned to computer-assisted planks to help tell the story of Wagner’s Ring cycle, the company stirred controversy and comment with another staging of the tetralogy. General Manager Rudolf Bing imported a stark, abstract production from the Salzburg Festival in order to secure the services of Herbert von Karajan, who not…
“Mirror, mirror on the wall, who are the greatest divas (Classic and Contemporary) of them all?” And the mirror replied, “I’ll tell you right after the jump!”
We begin our Kang Method statistical analysis of That Which is Called Diva with a dozen Classic Divas: Hildegard Behrens, Montserrat Caballé, Régine Crespin, Mirella Freni, Marilyn Horne, Christa Ludwig, Jessye Norman, Leontyne Price, Leonie Rysanek, Renata Scotto, Joan Sutherland and Tatiana Troyanos, henceforth called by first name or nickname as applicable. Our first report…
This live CD of Wagner orchestral excerpts and the Wesendonck Lieder is noteworthy for the conducting of Franz Welser-Most and the truly remarkable playing of The Cleveland Orchestra. I have seldom heard an ensemble sound so beautiful on CD. The strings shimmer like satin, the reeds are clean and clear, the brass warm and burnished with…
Undaunted by Hurricane Hannah, La Cieca continues her presentation of Lohengrin at Unnatural Acts of Opera. Lohengrin: Jess Thomas Elsa: Claire Watson Telramund: Walter Berry Ortrud: Christa Ludwig Koenig Heinrich: Martti Talvela Heerrufer: Eberhard Waechter Vienna State Opera, Karl Boehm, 1965. Lohengrin Act 2
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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