Red dress diaries
La Cieca has just received a complete report from her spy at today’s open dress rehearsal of La traviata at the Met.
Dmitri Hvorostovsky
57 pieces since 2006 — in 12 roles, at 8 companies, most often at Metropolitan Opera.
57
pieces
12
roles
8
companies
21
years
By role
Role Alfredo
Role Count di Luna
The gleam of his smile
A clearly moved Hvorostovsky basked in the moment and momentarily broke character to acknowledge the love.
Expect opera, pay less
You may remember, gentle readers, that last year about this time Peter Gelb decided to enter into an unholy alliance with Target to benefit their mountainous number of opera loving customers by pre-releasing two Met performances exclusively in their fine emporiums.
Role Giorgio Germont
Three nights in Paris
“Oh to be young and going to Paris for the first time,” exclaimed an elderly gentleman who donned his best sweatervest for a concert at the Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival this past August.
Bottom dollar
In Robert Carsen’s 2004 production of La traviata for Teatro La Fenice, the Prelude is staged. During this haunting music, we see Violetta lounging on a huge bed while more than a dozen men pay her for her services with wads of oversized dollar bills. By the time Act One begins, the bed is virtually covered […]
Role Gryaznoy
Mad about the Boyar
“Trove Thursday” offers a belated 55th birthday nod to Dmitri Hvorostovsky with a blazing live performance of Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Tsar’s Bride.
Role Il Conte di Luna
Out here in the dark
This is the tenth season of the Met’s HD broadcasts, not that I would know it.
Role Onegin
Wien disposition
Following classic recordings documenting the work of Karl Böhm and Herbert von Karajan. Orfeo’s 150 Years Wiener Staatsoper box moves on to new releases that are seeing their first incarnation on an officially available disc.
Handsomely done
Peter Mattei, one of my two favorite baritones these days, in an unexpected title role, Britten’s Billy Budd.
Same steppes, different dancers
Is there a more gorgeous male voice before the public today than Peter Mattei’s? Has Anna Netrebko ever sounded better?
Role Prince Andrei
Anna mirabilis
Deutsche Grammophon has just released Anna Netrebko: Live at the Metropolitan Opera, a CD with 11 excerpts recorded live from her Met performances from 2002 through 2010. Released to feature the soprano just prior to her opening in the Met’s Anna Bolena, the CD features Netrebko singing solo arias as well as duets with such […]
Role Renato
The man in the ironic mask
The realization of the opera Un ballo in maschera by Verdi and the librettist Antonio Somma is almost as famous as the opera itself.
Role Rigoletto
Fifty shades of gold
Anticipation of events like the Metropolitan Opera’s 50th Anniversary bash turns me back into the newly opera-soused kid who begged his parents to let him watch the highlights of the Bing Gala on the family color television.
Role Robert
At first sight
If I had to live with just one Tchaikovsky opera, it would be Iolanta.
Role Rodrigo
How Green was my Verdi
As the world knows, Anja Harteros dropped out of this series of Don Carlo for a stab at Aïda in Rome. Illness sidelined Ramón Vargas from the title roles in both Don Carlo and Werther. While Wiener Staatsoper has been plagued with cancellations all season (even substituting L’elisir d’amore for La Juive at the last […]
Role Yeletsky
Let me like a soldier fall
Between them, Maria Guleghina, Marcello Giordani, James Morris and John Del Carlo have nearly 150 combined years of service on stage.
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!
