Published in 1975, James McCourt’s novel Mawrdew Czgowchwz is engaged with a longing for the divine.
A poster outside Carnegie Hall proclaimed “Mahler Well Met” and to some degree it proved to be true.
It is always a pleasure to hear a great orchestra take on a major score that might sound half-muffled emerging from the pit of an opera house.
Anticipation of events like the Metropolitan Opera’s 50th Anniversary bash turns me back into the newly opera-soused kid who begged his parents to let him watch the highlights of the Bing Gala on the family color television.
In her debut solo album, Jamie Barton surrounds Gustav Mahler’s staples of the song repertoire, Rückert Lieder, with the less familiar Gypsy Songs of Antonin Dvorák and select songs by Jean Sibelius.
“Trove Thursday” presents a recording of the rare L’Olimpiade featuring Joan Caplan and Rita Shane in the two leading castrato roles.
So, how excited are you to read another piece about the Mary Zimmerman Rusalka?
With a cast of stellar singers and uneven direction by Mary Zimmerman, Dvorák’s Rusalka debuts in a new production at the Metropolitan Opera.
Blood-and-guts singing is the reason to see Nabucco at the Metropolitan Opera this season.
The 2016 Richard Tucker Award recipient is Tamara Wilson.
Washington National Opera’s first Ring Cycle came to a bittersweet conclusion this past Sunday, closing the door on an extraordinary three weeks in the opera house and a remarkable musical and theatrical achievement for the company.
Remember that time you went to the opera and the entire evening was perfection?
The annual Richard Tucker Gala is probably the event of the year to indulge your love of verismo staples and can belto screaming.
The Metropolitan Opera’s much vaunted so-called “Tudor Ring” of three royal operas by Donizetti got off to a bumpy start Saturday afternoon with a revival of Anna Bolena that stubbornly refused to cohere either musically or dramatically.
New York City isn’t a bad place to live, operatically-speaking.
I would love to contribute a top ten list but I didn’t even go to ten things this year.
Having heard a bit of the opening night broadcast and read some decidedly mixed reviews, I was totally unprepared for the remarkable performance of Donizetti’s Anna Bolena that I attended on December 15 at Chicago Lyric Opera.
Far be it from me to join the Schadenfreudian chorus of “Bye, Bye, Berti!” you may have been hearing in certain quarters, but the first thing I am duty-bound to report about San Francisco Opera’s Norma (of which three performances remain) is that they’ve hit the jackpot, coverwise.
Coming as Peter Gelb did from the music industry, opera lovers hoped that he would display a more distinctive knack for casting and an improved talent pipeline than Joe Volpe offered during the waning years of his tenure.
American mezzo Jamie Barton, who has steadily been winning fans in the US over the past few years for her rich and nuanced singing, took the international opera world by storm last weekend by winning both the Song Prize as well as the overall prize in the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition.
For better or worse, Decca’s new Norma recording
will ultimately be embraced—or dismissed—by those reacting directly to Cecilia Bartoli’s controversial portrayal.
Everyone who revives Bellini’s Beatrice di Tenda, as the Collegiate Chorale did at Carnegie Hall on Wednesday night, calls the piece an “overlooked masterpiece.”
La Cieca just returned from the HD of The Audition, a documentary about the 2007 Met National Council Auditions. The film puts her in an optimistic mood about the future of opera performance, or at any rate opera performers. Focus is on three young tenors who (spoiler) all end up winning the competition.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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