Fancy pants
A recent discussion here about Gianna Rolandi prompts Trove Thursday to present the American soprano in a rare trouser role in an even rarer opera, Cimarosa’s Gli Orazi e I Curiazi paired with Anna Caterina Antonacci.
Domenico Cimarosa
10 pieces since 2009.
10
pieces
18
years
Social Medea
Simone Mayr’s Medea in Corinto, a curious work of 1813, has been revived by Will Crutchfield’s new enterprise, Teatro Nuovo.
Well-trod cinders in fitting slippers
Forgotten operas when revived may prove to be only their own reward.
Happy ending
This week Trove Thursday endeavors to broaden his exposure with a bubbly performance of Il Marito Disperato starring Sylvia Geszty.
Significant mother
Fans of divas who sing 19th and 20th century opera may find themselves searching in vain for CDs to buy with this season’s gift cards, since their idols so rarely put out solo recitals these days.
Al fresco
Poor Paisiello. Out of the nearly 100 operas written by this industrious composer just one was generally regarded as a masterpiece.
When in Rome
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s only opera for Rome was written to an existing libretto by the great Pietro Metastasio, L’Olimpiade, which had already been set by Vivaldi the year previously.
Smiles on a summer night
Apparently, we learn very little in life; the follies we pursue with haste in youth are answered by the follies we commit in age with great deliberation.
Citius, Altius, Fortius
Of all the Olympics-related products created to honor the upcoming summer games in London, surely one of the oddest must be a brand new pasticcio just released on a two-CD set
by Naïve—L’Olimpiade.
Brief encounter
The day after opening the 2009-10 season with Hugo Weisgall’s Esther, New York City opera presented one of the most beloved operas in the entire repertoire, Mozart’s Don Giovanni, in a new production by Christopher Alden.