A favorite Wagner performance from Mister Snow
It took me a while to “warm up” to Wagner.
By Mister Snow
82 comments
Hildegard Behrens
33 pieces since 2005 — in 10 roles, at 3 companies, most often at Metropolitan Opera.
33
pieces
10
roles
3
companies
22
years
By role
10 pieces as Metropolitan Opera — stats above show all coverage for Hildegard Behrens.
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Jailhouse Roccos
Chris’s Cache wraps up November with Régine Crespin’s Chicago Leonore; two rare Met Fidelios headed by Christa Ludwig and Hildegard Behrens; and a concert performance with Birgit Nilsson led by Leonard Bernstein, plus a final twist: excerpts of Carol Vaness in Leonore.
Mounting dread
On this day in 1992 the Metropolitan Opera presented a [disastrous] new production of Elektra.
“A valiant if not completely successful attempt”
On this day in 1986, the Metropolitan Opera opened its season with a new production of Wagner’s Die Walküre.
Boys don’t cry
Who will prevail in Trove Thursday’s Fidelio Drag Race finals: Gwyneth Jones/Leonard Bernstein 1970 or Julia Varady/Nikolaus Harnoncourt 1986?
I had too much to dream last night
Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Die Tote Stadt in a 1967 Vienna broadcast appropriately featuring three American stars: John Alexander, Marilyn Zschau, and George London.
Beyond the sea
Those readers who know my musical tastes will not be shocked to find that I have a somewhat conflicted view of Mozart’s operatic works.
Not only with words, but with lively gestures
“I will never sing the role again. It was frightful. We were a set of madwomen…There is nothing beyond Elektra. We have lived and reached the furthest boundaries in dramatic writing for the voice with Wagner. But Richard Strauss goes beyond him. His singing voices are lost. We have come to a full stop.”
Hier bleibt Elektra
The Met has finally released the contents of the James Levine 40th Anniversary box sets separately for those of us who didn’t have $500 lying around.
Noch einmal!
Richard Strauss’s brilliantly disturbing Elektra was first performed at the Dresden State Opera in 1909, and arrived in America in 1910 at the Manhattan Opera House. A second American premiere, this time in the original German, was in Philadelphia in 1931 with – and this will kill you – Nelson Eddy as Orestes. Along with […]