Coming out
Christian Thielemann’s spirited, precise conducting and the superb, sumptuous playing of the Staatskapelle Dresden are the finest features of this strongly cast performance of Strauss’s Arabella.
Gabriela Benacková
30 pieces since 2012 — in 7 roles, at 5 companies, most often at Opera Orchestra of New York.
30
pieces
7
roles
5
companies
15
years
Role Countess Waldner
Role Elisabeth
Unexpected Wagneriennes
After attending three Met Lohengrins I’ve gone into Wagner withdrawal waiting for the upcoming Der Fliegende Holländer.
Role Jenufa
All about her stepmother
A new recording by the London Symphony Orchestra is the latest landmark in a spring full of Janácek‘s Jenufa
The Lady in the vanguard
“Trove Thursday” remembers the company’s very first Lady Macbeth via Leonie Rysanek’s NYC debut in a concert performance of Verdi’s Shakespeare masterpiece less than a year before her first Met appearance.
An old-fashioned wedding
Jungfer Marianne Leitmetzerin notes: while this performance of Janácek’s Jenufafeatures the same three principal singers from the legendary Carnegie Hall concert of 1988, the fact that it is a staged performance raises the temperature even higher.
Role Kát'a
Eye of a storm
Two of the leading postwar Czech sopranos appear together in Janacek’s Kát’a Kabanová when Trove Thursday presents Gabriela Benacková‘s gleaming heroine in her US debut relentlessly persecuted by Nadjezhda Kniplová’s implacable mother-in-law.
Role Libuše
Desperate housewife
As New Yorkers swelter in the Fahrenheit 90s. Trove Thursday escapes to wintry Vienna 1920s for Richard Strauss’s Intermezzo (in English) sumptuously conducted by Julius Rudel and starring the incomparable Elisabeth Söderström as the delicious, exasperating wife of Alan Titus.
The future’s so bright
For this, the 250th edition of Trove Thursday, [hold for applause] a broadcast of a memorable evening at Carnegie Hall—and I was there: Smetana’s stirring Libuse, the Czech national opera, with a transcendent Gabriela Benackova as its titular prophetess.
Role Rusalka
Let me like a soldier fall
Between them, Maria Guleghina, Marcello Giordani, James Morris and John Del Carlo have nearly 150 combined years of service on stage.
Role Widow/Soprano I
Prophet center
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.
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).
