When my editor suggested to me a round-up of my favorite recordings of Jacques Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann I was très, très, intrigued.
On this day in 1958 soprano Inge Borkh made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Salome (paired, of all things, with Gianni Schicchi)
Born on this day in 76 AD Roman Emperor Hadrian.
Mark Morris’ saucy, psychedelic The Hard Nut has returned to the Brooklyn Academy of Music yet again this week for its 27th Christmas since the ballet premiered in Brussels.
Jacques Offenbach’s Les contes d’Hoffmann has had a bumpy ride to its pride of position in the current French repertoire.
What is surreal, symbolic, and generally mysterious in the dramatic arts can get a bad rap.
There has never been a successful vampire musical—so they say. But that’s just not true.
In 1804, E.T.A. Hoffmann became acquainted with Schlegel’s translations of Spanish plays in Spanisches Theater. During an illness in 1807, he returned to the Schlegel and discovered Calderon’s Die Scharpe und die Blume, finding it an ideal operatic subject. He composed the opera in Warsaw and Berlin, and began seeking a theatre that would present…
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
×
Sign up for Parterre’s free newsletter.
Exclusive opera reviews, commentary, and top reads
delivered to your email weekly…ish.