Video Artists International brings us back to a time when opera was carried over the airwaves by great voices—and a tire company.
From one Mister Snow to another, I salute him.
The ailing and grief-stricken Pinkerton was shown to give his son a diary about his time in Nagasaki, and as Trouble read it, he (and the audience) was taken back in time as the story came to life, similar to the use of Pensieve in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Book 4).
Anticipating Leontyne Price’s 96th birthday on February 10, Chris’s Cache presents the American diva in an epic collection of live performances.
“The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays” – Soren Kierkegaard
Franco Corelli was born on April 8, 1921 in Ancona and Trove Thursday celebrates the matinee-idol tenor’s centenary with a pair of his rare non-Met US appearances; seducing Marie Collier in La Fanciulla del West and vacillating between Ilva Ligabue and Grace Bumbry in Il Trovatore.
Giacomo Puccini’s La fanciulla del West may have its detractors (Stravinsky referred to it as a “horse-opera’) but you will not find me among them.
Trove Thursday goes mini-epic with Gustave Charpentier’s naturalistic slice-of-life of fin-de-siêcle Paris in a rare 1999 Renée Fleming performance of Louise co-starring Jerry Hadley, Samuel Ramey and Felicity Palmer.
To mark Beverly Sills’s 90th birthday (May 25, 1929) “Trove Thursday” offers the late diva’s acclaimed Massenet heroine opposite her ideal Des Grieux, Alain Vanzo.
Puccini’s Girl closes out the 20th century and gallops into the 21st.
The principal cast members for the week’s Aida are all Wagnerians: Birgit Nilsson, Sándor Kónya, Rita Gorr and Cornell MacNeil.
It’s time to add more legends to my Mixcloud site: Mario Del Monaco, Raina Kabaivanska, and Tito Gobbi star in this 1962 performance of Otello from Covent Garden led by Georg Solti.
With February 14th falling on a Sunday, there will be no Valentine’s Day Met performance this year.
Between them, Maria Guleghina, Marcello Giordani, James Morris and John Del Carlo have nearly 150 combined years of service on stage.
With help from the Met’s invaluable performance archive, here is a look back at just some of what you could have seen, and perhaps did see, on October 31st through the years at the Met.
Another treasure from Mike Richter‘s trove: the only studio recording of Dorothy Kirsten‘s celebrated Tosca.
When handing out the goodies, the gods weren’t stingy with Shirley Verrett. Few opera singers were as prodigiously gifted as Verrett: the perfect amalgam of Kunst and Stimm housed in a frame of voluptuous allure. In addition to an instrument of stunning natural beauty and easy range, Verrett displayed superior musicianship, dramatic intelligence and searing…
La Cieca received this letter yesterday. If you have reviews, opinion pieces, appreciations, or (as in this case) a Letter to the Doyenne, please email to [email protected]. Saving New York City Opera?
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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