On this day in 1883 the Metropolitan Opera House opened with Gounod‘s Faust.
On this day in 1973 the Metropolitan Opera presented the company premiere of Les Troyens.
The production is at all times visually arresting, but it’s also extremely distracting.
The Eloquence label of Australia, the down under-arm of Decca and now by extension Deutsche Grammophon, seems to specialize in the re-release of “Auld Lang Syne” treats.
I am, perhaps instinctively, skeptical of those who commit suicide.
Those of you who have longed to see a theme-park production of Gounod’s simple, romantic opera Romeo et Juliette, rejoice!
It is, as Noel Coward remarked, astonishing how potent cheap music is. According to Brockway and Weinstock’s World of Opera, Gounod’s Faust was performed, after a rather lackluster debut in 1859, a thousand times inParis at the Opera between 1869 and 1894—a gobsmacking average of once every nine days.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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