In the lead up to LA Opera’s mounting of Turandot on May 18th (hooray!) I thought I’d touch on some of my favorite recordings and new re-masters I’ve discovered. I have them all.
Eagerly awaiting Met May Mozart Madness, Chris’s Cache presents a starry quintet of the master’s operas not being done next month.
Beverly Sills and Renée Fleming perform 30 years apart the same work with the same orchestra in the same venue!
Nina Stemme’s Elektra always seemed the sanest individual onstage never quite giving over to obsession or hysteria with a good line in mordant sarcasm and contempt.
For those pining for Puccini with the Met out of commission. Trove Thursday steps up with the composer’s brief first opera Le Villi with Krassimira Stoyanova, José Cura and Franz Grundheber, led by Simone Young.
During the 70s, Kiri Te Kanawa, particularly singing Mozart, became one of my favorite singers.
My first-ever Met Sunday opera brought the welcome return of Gluck’s sublime Orfeo ed Euridice in an enchanting afternoon that combined elegant conducting, joyous dancing and Jamie Barton’s extraordinary hero.
“Trove Thursday” turns to a quintet of baritone/bass voices: Matthias Goerne, Simon Keenlyside, Georg Nigl, Thomas Quasthoff and René Pape performing works by Pfitzner, Sibelius, Adams, Martin and Schubert.
Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Die Tote Stadt in a 1967 Vienna broadcast appropriately featuring three American stars: John Alexander, Marilyn Zschau, and George London.
“Trove Thursday” offers Mozart’s late opera seria in a Paris “pirate” featuring the high-voltage diva-duo of Anna Caterina Antonacci and Elina Garanca.
This week’s “Trove Thursday” offers Benjamin Britten’s Death in Venice featuring Anthony Rolfe Johnson.
Will Crutchfield’s Bel Canto at Caramoor program of concert operas concluded with a bang on Saturday with Bellini’s first success, Il Pirata.
A 1984 performance of Handel’s Orlando with Marilyn Horne, Valerie Masterson, Marvis Martin, Jeffery Gall and Robert Lloyd, conducted by Charles Mackerras.
Ana Maria Martinez’s tremendously impressive Cio-Cio-San dominated the season premiere of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly at the Met.
Maria Agresta‘s delicately-acted, sumptuously-sung seamstress transformed what might have been just an average Wednesday night revival into something finer.
Saturday evening conductor Will Crutchfield revived Donizetti’s La Favorite—unheard in New York for fifteen years.
La Cieca has just received a complete report from her spy at today’s open dress rehearsal of La traviata at the Met.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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