This task feels near impossible, as I listen to a LOT of art song singers on repeat, across decades and continents (from piano to orchestral works) — mostly for pleasure, but also for study.
Franz Welser-Möst leads a rigorous, if emotionally staid, performance of Verdi‘s Requiem at Carnegie Hall.
Pénélope at the Bayerische Staatsoper’s summer festival spotlights the crossroads between the nostalgic and the progressive.
I was just moderately excited when LA Opera announced that French tenor Benjamin Bernheim would be coming to concertize at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills, 90210.
My sole live encounter with Seiji Ozawa coincided with his final appearances at the Metropolitan Opera, where he conducted its 2008 revival of Tchaikovsky’s Pikovaya Dama.
On this day in 1922 the Metropolitan Opera presented the company debut of Catalani’s Loreley.
A double bill (with a choral intermezzo) that just finished four nights’ run at the Manhattan School of Music is a delight, musically whimsical and reminiscent, wittily and colorfully staged.
Everything’s coming up mélodie! As the pandemic rages on and new lockdowns have thrown large-scale performances into disarray, record labels have been releasing new albums of French art song by the bucketload.
“Trove Thursday” features its two favorite baritones in a pair of comforting settings of the Requiem.
Christian Thielemann is widely regarded as our time’s preeminent master of the Austro-German symphonic ensemble.
Anna Netrebko sang throughout with a palpable sense of joy and ease in vocal production, never a hint of strain or any moment forced.
I was overjoyed by the coincidence that Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival would be presenting Façade.
Julia Bullock revisited a few well-trodden song cycles and lieder but pointed up their hidden politics.
My mother leaned in and quietly whispered,”Is that Leontyne Price?” to which I replied,”Shhhh!”
Though the novel’s structure and texture are often compared to musical forms such as Wagnerian music-drama, who would attempt to turn Proust’s A la Recherche de Temps Perdu into opera?
There was wonder and magic last night in Philly when The Philadelphia Chamber Music Society presented British tenor Mark Padmore and American pianist Jonathan Biss in a recital devoted to the songs of Schumann, Tippett, and Fauré.
Readers of this site are typically up to speed on emerging vocal talents, so clearly there is no need for me to write a review of Chilean-German soprano Carolina Ullrich’s riveting recital at the Paris Opera?
This week’s gem from the Mike Richter collection is all the more precious for its rarity: a performance of Fauré’s Pénélope starring ravishing Régine Crespin.
Our Own Jungfer Marianne Leitmetzerin presents Natalie Dessay in recital.
Midway through the first portion of this past Wednesday’s New York City recital debut of Mme. Natalie Dessay I became very distracted by the persistent urge to try to characterize the experience of what was happening on stage, for this was, by no means, an ordinary recital and no ordinary debutante.
This DVD
of a Diana Damrau recital (accompanied only by the harpist Xavier de Maistre) is sure to please her legions of fans.
We all know and love Fauré, but how many of us can say we’ve seen his opera Pénélope live and in person? As of last night, I number myself among the few.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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