I shall be released
Welcome, beloveds, to the Jessye Norman Memorial Museum. I’ll be the docent for your tour today.
Herbert von Karajan
102 pieces since 2006 — at 10 companies, most often at La Scala.
102
pieces
10
companies
21
years
Hear the trumpets sound!
Frankly I thought Sondra Radvanovsky had reached her pinnacle with her Norma but I was apparently mistaken. I’m happy to say her Turandot is completely next-level.
Pearls of great Price
Anticipating Leontyne Price’s 96th birthday on February 10, Chris’s Cache presents the American diva in an epic collection of live performances.
Wagnerienne
Diva November meets Wagner December when Chris’s Cache this week offers Régine Crespin as both Elisabeth in Tannhäuser and Senta in Der Fliegende Holländer via a pair of American pirates from the 1960s.
Everything sacred
Wrapping up Diva November, Chris’s Cache offers two sacred works that couldn’t be more unalike.
For the first time
On this day in 1967 Herbert von Karajan bowed at the Metropolitan Opera in a new production of Die Walküre which he directed and conducted.
We’ll always have Paris (or maybe not)
The revival of Don Carlo(s) which opened on November 3 restored the translated Italian text and the cut 1882 four-act revision not seen at the Met since Rudolf Bing’s last season in 1972.
Nothing to sneeze at
This week’s Trove Thursday—Kodály’s Háry János in a 1955 RAI broadcast in Italian led by famed Hungarian conductor Ferenc Fricsay—may be a bit brief as C-19 finally arrived last week chez CC.
Behold the happy pair
Beverly Sills and Renée Fleming perform 30 years apart the same work with the same orchestra in the same venue!
A real vibrancy
Your favorite box set-aholic here completely missed the release last August of Giuseppe Di Stefano – Complete Decca Recordings in honor of the great tenor’s centenary.
(Yet more) Thoughts on ‘Don Carlos’: Coronations and finales
In any case, we are now in the Queen’s garden of the Palace in Madrid. It is the day before the coronation of King Philip. Coronation? What coronation?
(More) Thoughts on ‘Don Carlos’: Carlo or Carlos?
The only correct version of Don Carlos must be in French. That is the language that Verdi composed it in and he made all his revisions in that language.
Listening to Bernard Haitink
In the month and a half leading to Bernard Haitink’s passing on October 21, my AirPods constantly channeled a musical festival of sorts centered on the Dutch giant’s expansive discography.
Selling the drama
Though the formal recorded aria recital is the ultimate calling card of an artist, the invitation to the spectator to receive, listen, and critically behold of the offerings (on fire or burnt), they are but a souvenir and there are a few drawbacks inherent with the presentation.
Vierzig Letzte Lieder
Quarantining during COVID dramatically increased my compulsion to collect and compare interpretations.
I, Franco
Franco Corelli was born on April 8, 1921 in Ancona and Trove Thursday celebrates the matinee-idol tenor’s centenary with a pair of his rare non-Met US appearances; seducing Marie Collier in La Fanciulla del West and vacillating between Ilva Ligabue and Grace Bumbry in Il Trovatore.
The boys from Syracuse
Trove Thursday begins February with two striking versions of Rossini’s Tancredi.
Fairies at the bottom of our Wagner
Ordinarily we’d be listening to Bayreuth Festival broadcasts this week but instead Trove Thursday steps up with a true Wagner rarity: Die Feen from the Wiener Staatsoper starring as Ada, the fairy in love with a mortal, Gundula Janowitz, who turns 83 on Sunday.
Midwest side story
A theater-critic friend of my father once said that Laurence Olivier played American like it was a character choice.
Vier Letzte Lieder
My introduction to the work was the Angel LP from 1964 with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and George Szell… and yes, I’m aware that it’s a performance that tends to divide rooms.
Singing through
A near-full house attended the Jessye Norman Memorial Celebration at the Met on Sunday afternoon, the auditorium packed with family, friends, colleagues, and fans of the late soprano, who passed away on September 30 of this year.
Storm of the century
A sense of celebration was definitely in the air last Thursday at the Vienna State Opera.
Wien disposition
Following classic recordings documenting the work of Karl Böhm and Herbert von Karajan. Orfeo’s 150 Years Wiener Staatsoper box moves on to new releases that are seeing their first incarnation on an officially available disc.
Wien to me
Orfeo’s 150 Years box chronologically documents some of the finest nights of live opera from the Wiener Staatsoper in the years following its restoration in 1955.