Yannick Nézet-Séguin leads the Philadelphia Orchestra, Stuart Skelton, and Nina Stemme in a Tristan und Isolde for the ages
Folks who have never attended a full-length, uncut Giacomo Meyerbeer grand opera have been known to pout and ponder: Why did the most popular opera composer of the mid-nineteenth century all but vanish from the stages of the world after a hundred years?
As an opera fanatic who was baptized by the blood of Leontyne Price, the Messa da Requiem by Giuseppe Verdi appeared on my radar fairly soon after I started delving into the operatic canon.
Gabriela Benacková, one of Trove Thursday’s favorite sopranos, turns 75 tomorrow, so we celebrate with two rare complete Verdi portrayals.
My sister Julie celebrates an important birthday later this month which reminded me—as I also recalled I visiting her while she was living in Prague—that I should unearth Bohuslav Martin?’s Julietta with Lucia Popp and Dénes Gulyás for this week’s Trove Thursday.
April is the cruelest month, the song tells us—but this year, it was a week later. Ghenady Meirson, Philadelphia’s master of Russian Opera and coach extraordinaire, died on May 8.
I still remember, and some of it quite vividly, what it was like to experience Achim Freyer‘s intense and groundbreaking Ring production all these years later.
Trove Thursday couldn’t wait until Passover to offer Mendelssohn’s Elijah featuring two of my favorite singers, Gabriela Benacková and José van Dam, joined by Florence Quivar, Francisco Araiza and Thomas Moser.
Russian repertoire figures very centrally in AVA’s mission.
There was a general feeling of homecoming in the hall on Friday evening in anticipation of what promised to be a special return visit on many levels.
A 1989 production of Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera should have been another jewel in Herbert von Karajan’s already quite impressive crown. A stellar cast, an impeccable orchestra, an enormous period set –the grand opera of Salzburg under his regime. He had recently finished a studio recording with the cast, and was preparing them for…
Igor Stravinsky was a bit of a musical shapeshifter in his day, especially when compared to his contemporaries in early 20th century Europe. Given, the time in which Stravinsky was living in Europe was one of the most dynamic periods in recent history, but few were able to consistently generate music of such varying style…
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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