Turandot doesn’t exist
It’s back to business as usual at the Met, for better and for worse.
Franco Zeffirelli
133 pieces since 2005 — at 5 companies, most often at Metropolitan Opera.
133
pieces
5
companies
22
years
Stratas in the Sixties
Teresa Stratas turned 83 yesterday and Trove Thursday features one of the recent past’s most interesting yet frustrating artists in two rare broadcasts.
Magic Freyer
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.
Wild horses
This video recording of Il trovatore is sensational for all the right and wrong reasons simultaneously.
Dueling duels
Mr. Wilson’s production concept, according to his liner notes, has more to do with Paris at the time of the premiere and a “world of memory” than it does with the storytelling of civil war in medieval Spain.
Hymns and chaos
It’s Easter season, and that can mean only one thing for opera: It’s Cavalleria Rusticana time. And I, for one, couldn’t be more excited.
Queen of the New Year
Although the gold glitter cannons detonated at the end of the act were an ostentatious reminder that this was a celebration of the new year, it seemed that the only words on anyone’s lips as the audience filed out of the theater were “Viva Netrebko!”
We’ll always have Paris
At Friday night’s performance of La Bohème at the Met, the cast seemed to lean into (and gamble upon) the production’s enduring popularity.
Puppets and cherry blossoms
I find it difficult to experience Madama Butterfly without also experiencing an odd fracturing of the self.
Orientation
There were plenty of Turan-do’s and only a few Turandon’ts at the Met’s Turandot Sunday afternoon.
Funny fascist
Leave it to Opera News to whitewash the revolting reactionary politics of Franco Zeffirelli.
Franco Zeffirelli 1923-2019
The legendary opera and film director has died. He was 96.
Star-crossed
For more than 40 years, the magnificent opening image from Francis Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites has served as an icon for the Met.
Next to Norman
In addition to Jessye Norman, this event paid homage to the shamefully obscure soprano Sissieretta Jones—once billed as “The Black Patti.”
Man of the camellias
Tuesday the Met unveils its sixth new production of La Traviata since moving to Lincoln Center.
Must the winter come so soon?
On Tuesday we got one of the Met’s inveterate classics, which meant yet another opportunity to gaze upon the old accessories: Donkey cart! Teal shawl! Fugly plaid slacks!
Prodigy
Maria Callas’s most outstanding Adalgisa, out of all she partnered with, was Fiorenza Cossotto.
The queen’s throat
“Trove Thursday ” presents Heinrich Marschner’s Hans Heiling in a 2001 performance from Berlin featuring Alessandra Marc as the title character’s mom, the Queen of the Elves.
The fire of artifice
My mother leaned in and quietly whispered,”Is that Leontyne Price?” to which I replied,”Shhhh!”
Technical difficulties
La bohéme returned to the stage of the Metropolitan Opera once again last night (does it ever leave?)
Safe passage
A Met HD cinema broadcast of Puccini’s Tosca on Saturday, 27 January, concluded the first run of a production marked by upheaval in the ten months between its announcement and its New Year’s Eve premiere.
Bringing up Bondy
The more ignorant segments of the public and the critical establishment continue to shout praise to David McVicar‘s torpid Tosca as the greatest triumph of the reactionary since the Bourbon Restoration.
E avanti a lui russava tutta Roma
The Met got exactly what it asked for: a safely opulent, resolutely unchallenging Tosca that was far from shabby or little but couldn’t have been less shocking
Carlos at the Bat
“Trove Thursday” celebrates with Carlos Kleiber conducting Johann Strauss, Jr.’s Die Fledermaus.
Win a Free Ticket to Opening Night at the Met!
Quinn Kelsey and Lise Davidsen star in the Met's new Macbeth. We're giving away one ticket, so screw your courage to the sticking place and enter now!
I’ll take the fall
The days are getting shorter, but you can keep the prattle going this fall’s Talk of the Town! You will, you can, you must join in the discussion about: Great mezzo soprano performances (October),
Gained in translation (November), Teleport me back to… (December).
