Parterre Box acknowledges Riccardo Muti‘s 600th performance with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra by highlighting two of his favorite singers — under a different conductor.
Simon Boccanegra has never felt as foreboding or prophetic as it did at a recent performance at La Fenice.
Anna Pirozzi and Luca Salsi reunite in blazing form in Tosca at the Teatro San Carlo
It would be enough to compare his official studio recording of this work with the recent performances in Turin to confirm that today Riccardo Muti is no longer totally ‘Mutian’
When our friends at Naxos and C Major announced near-dueling releases of Puccini’s “shabby little shocker,” I was ready with my critic’s pen dipped in bile.
Riccardo Muti’s vision of Aida’s score largely emerged as one of subtlety, musicality, and restraint.
Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov must be Russian’s most iconic opera and “Trove Thursday” presents it with Claudio Abbado leading an impressive team.
Uneven operas, like Verdi’s Ernani, which just recently finished its Scala run, more often work as theatre on the micro level than the macro.
The second DVD/Blu-ray with Plácido Domingo as Verdi’s other beleaguered Doge, Francesco in I due Foscari.
On Thursday evening, the Teatro alla Scala audience didn’t watch the familiar presentation of a “wayward woman” who overcomes moral inferiority only to be robbed of happiness when she finally deserved it.
Jonas Kaufmann announced that he feels ready to return to the stage after calling in sick since last autumn
“Take a good deal of trouble with it, because it is a fine subject, delicate and full of pathos.”
“Oh to be young and going to Paris for the first time,” exclaimed an elderly gentleman who donned his best sweatervest for a concert at the Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival this past August.
Mr. Ian Rosenblatt is a London solicitor and patron of charitable causes in Britain primarily focused on classical music.
When I acquire DVDs of opera performances, I look for performances which truly merit a video recording; performances in which the totality of the musical and dramatic elements are worth preserving for repeated viewing.
In spite of sounding like an indelicate football injury, I Lombardi alla prima crociata was only Giuseppe Verdi’s fourth opera.
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…
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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