Psychology is encoded in the composer’s vocal lines more than his librettist’s words.
Published in 1975, James McCourt’s novel Mawrdew Czgowchwz is engaged with a longing for the divine.
Endlessly extricating her from existing contracts then negotiating new ones must make being Sonya Yoncheva’s manager the hardest job in the music business.
If everything you see is great, you are either new to opera or chronically easy to please.
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.
Any production of Der Rosenkavalier that can transform the usually excruciating first half of the third act into a hilarious romp already has my vote.
Massenet’s La Navarraise in a live performance featuring Rita Gorr as Anita and George Shirley as Araquil.
Revive is a manifesto of sorts, declaring Elina Garanca’s intentions for the new direction in her career.
With Christmas Eve 2016 falling on a Saturday, the Met offers contrasting orchestral splendors at noon and 6 p.m.
>What does a great opera production do, and what does a bad production fail to do?
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.
This season’s Met Donizetti Tudor Trilogy concluded with Roberto Devereux, given its penultimate performance by HD transmission Saturday, April 16. It is good to see these works finally given here; they are too important, too crucial a part of the operatic repertory to have been ignored for as long as they have.
During its first-ever Roberto Devereux Thursday evening one felt transported back to the Volpe years: four of the Met’s biggest stars shining in an opulent (if occasionally perverse) but reassuringly non-challenging production paid for by Sybil B. Harrington.
Friday’s season premiere at the Met of Donizetti’s opera about the doomed Scottish queen proved surprisingly satisfying and a genuine success for Sondra Radvanovsky.
The Metropolitan Opera’s much vaunted so-called “Tudor Ring” of three royal operas by Donizetti got off to a bumpy start Saturday afternoon with a revival of Anna Bolena that stubbornly refused to cohere either musically or dramatically.
Saturday evening conductor Will Crutchfield revived Donizetti’s La Favorite—unheard in New York for fifteen years.
Our Own Jungfer Marianne Leitmetzerin gets serious for a moment, or rather for about an hour and a half, with a performance of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis led by Christian Thielemann.
Life is not fair. There are rules that apply to Jonas Kaufmann, and rules that apply to everyone else.
I suspect most New York City opera-lovers had long since given up hope that the fascinating soprano Anna Caterina Antonacci would ever return to their city.
A singer who was monochromatic long before she started appearing in “Obsession by Calvin Klein” circa 1986-styled music videos, Elina Garanca …
Reflecting my new mantra — “and would have gone on longer, had he not died” – here is The Curate’s Egg edition of the Saturday breakdown.
I’ve been a big fan of Donizetti’s Anna Bolena since I first heard it on recording and have always felt that it deserved a definitive recorded performance. Here’s a brief tour of why this hasn’t happened. There’s the Bible, also known as the live Scala relay with Callas and Simionato and musical cuts so egregious…
The interpretation of Carmen by Latvian mezzo-soprano Elina Garanca has been much debated, many finding her cold and remote, others admiring her subtly smoldering quality. A new Deutsche Grammophon DVD documenting the Met’s January 16, 2010 performances offers us an opportunity to examine the gypsy in close-up. This is certainly not the lusty, passionate, mercurial Carmen…
The annual Richard Tucker gala came and went at Avery Fisher Hall with the usual quota of gaffes, wardrobe malfunctions, no-shows, too-much-shows, substitutions and surprise guests (well, guest). And sandwiched between the routine, the egocentric and the just plain dull were moments of true dementia, the moments that we melomanes live and die for. Most…
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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