The Verdi Chorus celebrated their 35th anniversary with their spring concert weekend entitled The Force of Destiny last Saturday night and Sunday afternoon.
I clearly remember the day I first heard the voice of Cesare Siepi.
It’s fortunate that the Met’s production of Luisa Miller featured the incomparable Piotr Beczala in the role of Rodolfo.
There are two delights here: a delectable score too rarely heard and an introduction at close quarters to half a dozen young singers ready for takeoff, indeed already flying.
The arrival of a new recording of Giuseppe Verdi’s Otello into the catalogue, to say nothing of a new tenor capable of singing Otello, is generally cause for hosannas all around in operatic circles.
Anita Rachvelishvili and Quinn Kelsey towered over an otherwise pedestrian if still exciting Il Trovatore.
Norman Dello Joio, who was knocking about winning prizes for film and TV scores, composed The Trial at Rouen, his second opera on the subject, for NBC.
“Semiramide—a better opera than this dude expected!”
C-major has made available the first DVD/Blu-ray of Franco Faccio’s Amleto.
What if you could time travel back to the first run of Giuseppe Verdi’s first great success Nabucco?
Verdi’s Rigoletto returned to Lyric Opera of Chicago, a rousing performance both musically and dramatically.
Aida certainly has its longueurs.
Diana Damrau has chosen for her new Erato recital disc Grand Opera 11 high-flying showpieces from ten operas by Giacomo Meyerbeer.
The New Amsterdam Opera Company presented a concert Forza (orchestra and chorus, yes; sets and costumes, no) at $35 a ticket.
Opera composers do not often change their spots.
Revive is a manifesto of sorts, declaring Elina Garanca’s intentions for the new direction in her career.
“Take a good deal of trouble with it, because it is a fine subject, delicate and full of pathos.”
How Verdi’s opera might address this particular nightmare was unclear.
Just 85 years ago, four of Italy’s greatest opera stars gathered at Teatro all Scala for an historic event: the first-ever recording of Arrigo Boito’s sole complete opera, Mefistofele.
Mimìs, Violettas, and Cio-Cio-Sans may live, love, and meet their ends without a tear from me, but I have never left a performance of Janácek’s The Cunning Little Vixen dry-eyed.
The grand illusion is that we know it all. From four hundred years of opera, we’ve distilled the worthy survivors.
Too often I allow my memories of great singers to be dulled by late career behavior, delving into unsuitable roles or just plain laziness.
In how many operas does the heroine drink poison and then go lengthily mad?
Giuseppe Verdi was so unhappy with the first production of his Giovanna d’Arco at La Scala in 1845 that he swore an oath to himself that he would never entrust that theatre with a prima again.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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