Straight to hell Straight to hell

November in New York hosts two premieres dedicated to mythology’s greatest musician, which prompts Trove Thursday to present a vintage Monteverdi L’Orfeo with Judith Raskin and Gérard Souzay conducted by Leopold Stokowski (!) and a recent HIP London broadcast of Luigi Rossi’s L’Orfeo.

Social Medea Social Medea

Simone Mayr’s Medea in Corinto, a curious work of 1813, has been revived by Will Crutchfield’s new enterprise, Teatro Nuovo.

A touch of classic A touch of classic

“Trove Thursday” offfers Joseph Martin Kraus’s superb Aeneas i Cartago, eller Dido och Aeneas—in Swedish!—starring a luminous Elisabeth Söderström as the doomed Queen.

That time of year That time of year

One of the greats of classical music, Franz Joseph Haydn was a bit of an “also-ran” as an opera composer.

Scrumptious and relatable Scrumptious and relatable

I had a panic attack, that’s how moved you made me.

Out of the depths Out of the depths

“Trove Thursday” provides a live broadcast of Mozart’s rarely performed cantata Davide Penitente by Les Arts Florissants conducted by William Christie.

As on through the seasons we sail As on through the seasons we sail

Trove Thursday looks forward to spring via Haydn’s beguiling oratorio Die Jahreszeiten (The Seasons) in a splendid rendition from the 1981 Salzburg Festival with Ileana Cotrubas, Francisco Araiza and José van Dam, James Levine conducting.

Sail, away

Sir Arthur Sullivan, the son of an Irish father and an Italian mother, studied Mendelssohn’s composition style in Leipzig. He was therefore, inevitably, the supreme English theater composer of his day, and his often Mozartean style of melody is not out of place in a bel canto festival. After all, in the fourteen operettas he…

Regie is in the eye of the beholder

I really haven’t paid much attention to “opera regie,” so I can’t give you a firm definition of it. A while ago, a pithy and biting piece called “How to Opera Germanly” made the internet rounds, and it serves as a handy guide for we who are un- or under-initiated. This production of Haydn’s Orlando…

Ecco il ‘mondo’

“In space, no one can hear you scream — but in a planetarium, everyone can hear you sing.” Our Own JJ (not pictured) reviews Haydn’s Il mondo della luna.  [NYP]