Ain’t no mountain high enough
A new production of La sonnambula at the Metropolitan Opera is musically charming if dramatically confounding.
Giuditta Pasta
12 pieces since 2010.
12
pieces
17
years
The new Norma
In a splashy new recording of Norma, Marina Rebeka “is doing something very untoward, and it appears destructive to her voice.” It has Niel Rishoi worried.
In the midnight tower
On this day in 2011, the Metropolitan Opera opened its season with a new production of Anna Bolena.
Fancy pants
A recent discussion here about Gianna Rolandi prompts Trove Thursday to present the American soprano in a rare trouser role in an even rarer opera, Cimarosa’s Gli Orazi e I Curiazi paired with Anna Caterina Antonacci.
Gold rush
Now we find Mariella Devia, a diva held in near mythic regard due to her vocal longevity, with competing videos of two of her performances that were released, literally, on the same day.
La figlia dell’aria
For her third solo recording, Olga Peretyatko summons the two men who launched her career less than a decade ago
Star, crossed
The key to enjoying Bellini’s I Capuleti e Montechi is to do a hard factory reset and reformat your brain to forget all other works based on Romeo and Juliet.
Racing with the moon
For better or worse, Decca’s new Norma recording
will ultimately be embraced—or dismissed—by those reacting directly to Cecilia Bartoli’s controversial portrayal.
Bea in the bonnet
Everyone who revives Bellini’s Beatrice di Tenda, as the Collegiate Chorale did at Carnegie Hall on Wednesday night, calls the piece an “overlooked masterpiece.”
Mayr, fair lady
Giovanni Simone Mayr was one of the most important musical figures of his day, a man Rossini referred to as the “father of Italian opera” whom Napoleon personally lobbied to come work in Paris. Though he wrote nearly 70 operas and taught Donizetti and Bellini, the Bavarian-born composer had the misfortune of hitting his peak […]
Cross purposes
The subtitle for Il crociato in Egitto, the last of Meyerbeer’s great Italian operas, is “Historic Melodrama in Two Acts,” and boy is it! A melodrama, I mean. I’m not sure about the historic part.
Journey into the unknown
Among the ten musical feasts that Paris staged to celebrate the coronation of the last Bourbon king, Charles X, in 1825, Il viaggio a Reims by Gioachino Rossini had undoubtedly the highest profile. Others, including La Route de Reims, a pastiche of Mozart music, are now long forgotten, and Rossini’s score once seriously risked suffering […]
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).
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!
