Chris’s Cache highlights the erstwhile Chicago Symphony Orchestra @ Carnegie series with not one but two starry operas conducted by Georg Solti: Salome with Birgit Nilsson and a performance of Moses und Aron
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.
Folks who have never attended a full-length, uncut Giacomo Meyerbeer grand opera have been known to pout and ponder: Why did the most popular opera composer of the mid-nineteenth century all but vanish from the stages of the world after a hundred years?
As revivals of the composer’s sprawling works represent a daunting expense for many opera houses, exceptionally cast recordings of such concert performances serve as valuable documents that foster appreciation for his achievements.
It’s time to discuss Zinka Milanov.
My sole live encounter with Seiji Ozawa coincided with his final appearances at the Metropolitan Opera, where he conducted its 2008 revival of Tchaikovsky’s Pikovaya Dama.
Chris’s Cache offers up a quintet of intriguing “forgotten” Leonora-Azucena pairings from the 1970s.
Recent discussion about the merits of Le Prophète has prompted Chris’s Cache to unearth a pirate recording of Meyerbeer’s opera with Marilyn Horne, Rita Shane and Guy Chauvet led by Charles Mackerras, along with an earlier collaboration of the mezzo and conductor: Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice in which Horne goes to hell to get back Adriana Maliponte with the help of Judith Blegen.
Teresa Zylis-Gara died in late August at 91 and Trove Thursday offers the Polish soprano in a wide-ranging collection of live material showcasing her great versatility.
Trove Thursday offers a pair of live broadcasts of Médée featuring two compelling mid-20th century divas—Inge Borkh in German and Eileen Farrell in Italian.
Let’s call this meeting to order. My name is Patrick and I’m a boxset-aholic.
With Christmas Eve 2016 falling on a Saturday, the Met offers contrasting orchestral splendors at noon and 6 p.m.
Miss Battle was greeted with a thunderous ovation befitting a beloved singer at the end of an illustrious career.
For those of you who can’t make it to the Met’s opening night, I am happy to provide you the opportunity to experience another Otello with a cast that was unmatchable for 1981.
As the Deutsche Grammophon producer for the 1972 Metropolitan Opera Carmen recording, I was delighted to read Patrick Mack’s review of its recent re-release on a surround-sound/stereo CD set.
The opening night of the Metropolitan Opera of September 1972 was supposed to be the dawn of a new era.
Fifteen years after his first parterre box interview, that criterion of countertenors David Daniels speaks of Oscar Wilde, Marilyn Horne, marriage and political art.
On this, the occasion of her 37th birthday [see below], La Cieca is happy to repeat the story of how she came to be born (as first told in the pages of parterre box, issue #28.
Sony Classical, in association with The Metropolitan Opera, has begun issuing on CD a number of historic Met broadcasts, newly remastered. The first I received for review was the December 10, 1955 broadcast of Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera, perhaps most notable for the Ulrica of Marian Anderson, who earlier that year made her debut…
Since I had already gotten my Hanukah gift this year (my Nikon D3000 DSLR), I was surprised to receive a box from my sister this past week. One of the gifts inside was Les Urnes de l’Opera, a collection of arias and scenes recorded shortly after the turn of the last century and buried in…
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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