Opera conductors … my favorite subject!
He has conducted some of my favorite opera recordings.
Greek National Opera’s Medea in the ancient theater at Epidaurus is an intermittently rewarding exercise in nostalgia.
Christopher Corwin speaks to rising bass-baritone Le Bu about his journey from Yancheng, China to the Met (with a stop in Wichita) and what important roles await him.
Leontyne Price in her early prime is soaring and radiant in traditional Christmas songs.
For me, one of the greatest recordings is the Von Karajan Il trovatore. You have four incredible singers in their top form.
Nowhere are the contradictions between Wagner’s small-mindedness, his meanness of spirit, and his human insight on clearer display than in Hans Sachs monologue Wahn, Wahn überall Wahn in the third Act of Mesitersinger.
My recollections of Hurricane Katrina, which made landfall in Louisiana twenty years ago today, come with a pair of odd bookends: it starts with Verdi’s Don Carlo and ends with Puccini’s Il trittico.
I’d long ago given up on my Goldilocks search for a “just right” complete Tristan und Isolde recording starring Jon Vickers, my hands-down tenor of choice.
Claudio Abbado made his Met debut on 7 October 1968 conducting Verdi’s Don Carlo, led five more performances through 14 November, and then never returned. Chris’s Cache offers the only complete recording I’ve run across from that run.
Matthew Travisano takes on Mimì’s Act III aria from La bohème — not that one, the other one — in the latest installment of the “Perspectives on an Aria” series
As for complete recordings of Il trovatore, which was discussed at some length last week, there are at least 200 of them, both studio and live.
Patrick Mack on the iconic Ethan Mordden‘s career and his first book on opera in 30 years – and it appears that time has mostly stopped in the Mordden manse.
Chris’s Cache celebrates an “Easter in October” gala with five special pirate recordings of Cavalleria Rusticana from the Met featuring four prima donnas whose Santuzze never got a Saturday broadcast and one whose did: Giulietta Simionato, Fiorenza Cossotto, Régine Crespin, Rita Hunter and Mignon Dunn.
On this day in 1965 soprano Mirella Freni and tenor Gianni Raimondi made their Metropolitan Opera debuts in La bohème
Chris’s Cache wishes Gundula Janowitz a happy 87th birthday today with three early live broadcasts of a favorite soprano in works by Pergolesi, Haydn, and Schumann.
As an opera fanatic who was baptized by the blood of Leontyne Price, the Messa da Requiem by Giuseppe Verdi appeared on my radar fairly soon after I started delving into the operatic canon.
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.
Yes, there were other Giocondas if not of quite the same distinction. Chronologically…
And what a luxury it is to experience this musically outstanding Parsifal with a cast of this caliber!
It would be enough to compare his official studio recording of this work with the recent performances in Turin to confirm that today Riccardo Muti is no longer totally ‘Mutian’
Perhaps the greatest souvenir of her art there is.
In any case, we probably got as good a Tannhäuser cast as could be assembled these days.
On this day in 1965 soprano Mirella Freni and tenor Gianni Raimondi made their Metropolitan Opera debuts in La bohème.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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