Two recent Paminas feature in concerts at Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall.
It may be blasphemy to admit—particularly this month—but usually I can either take or leave Donizetti’s serious operas. However, I love the composer in comic mode, so Chris’s Cache runs with that sentiment in offering three recordings of Don Pasquale.
Nadine Sierra, Javier Camarena, and Artur Rucinski lead a live broadcast from Barcelona.
Lyric Opera of Chicago has opened its new season with a revival of its tried and true 2006 production of Verdi’s sixteenth opera, Rigoletto, one of his most tuneful and dramatic works (I attended the Sunday matinée performance).
Boston Lyric Opera’s shows, of late, are often going to war with their texts.
One of the first things James Conlon did when he took over the reins as Music Director of LA Opera was create the “Recovered Voices” project, producing operas that had been suppressed by the Nazis.
A convocation of mezzos–and a pride of tenors–produce hundreds of sixteenth notes in a bewitching Rossini showpiece
On June 20, a rather breezy, pleasant cool summer evening, the soprano Gabriella Reyes, tenor René Barbera and baritone Will Liverman took over the Summerstage space with a wide-ranging, ambitious recital program with Dimitri Dover tickling the ivories.
On paper, the Met’s revival of L’elisir d’amore looked like a lovely evening. And at times it was—a few scenes hinted at what it could be and what it might yet become.
With no disrespect to Nadine Sierra, who as Lucia acquits herself honorably if not magically in vocal terms, the undisputed cause célèbre here is director Simon Stone.
From the multiple standing ovations, to say nothing of the gentleman in the front row waving the Mexican flag, I can safely say that a very good time was had by all.
Trove Thursday offers a nearly forgotten 19th century opera with a most marvelous name: Le Roi d’Ys by Éduoard Lalo featuring a superb French cast led by Alain Vanzo, Andrea Guiot, Jane Rhodes and Robert Massard.
Starring Pretty Yende, Stephanie Blythe, Kathleen Turner, Javier Camarena, and Maurizio Muraro, conducted by Enrique Mazzola. Production by Laurent Pelly. From March 2, 2019.
Happy New Year, dear readers, from me, Callum, and Christine Goerke’s headband-tiara!
I need to get something off my chest. I love bel canto.
While last year’s finals were dominated by early nineteenth-century bel canto arias, this year’s finalists took on a remarkably broad range of music from a variety of repertoires.
La Fille du Régiment, Donizetti’s half-spoken ode to La France about a girl raised by a division of daddies, is at once infamous and beloved for the string of nine high C’s capping act one.
Alexander Birch Elliott‘ s dynamic if gauche Zurga added some pizzazz to an otherwise bland evening.
Isn’t it nice to know a lot? And a little bit not.
The new cast at the Met suggested an alliterative retitling of Lucia di Lammermoor was needed—perhaps Lost Loonies in Love or its Italian equivalent?
April brought I Puritani to Palermo’s centerpiece Teatro Massimo.
As a diehard completist I felt guilty as the Met’s scattered, campy revival of Semiramide lumbered toward its abrupt conclusion after nearly four hours.
Sir David McVicar’s inept and dreary new production of Bellini’s Norma proved to be more satisfying than it had been on opening night when it returned to the Met Friday evening thanks to its new leading ladies Angela Meade and Jamie Barton
Georges Bizet’s Les pêcheurs de perles has been knocking steadily at the door of the standard repertoire now in this country for quite some time.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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