Video Artists International brings us back to a time when opera was carried over the airwaves by great voices—and a tire company.
A well-known Met Aïda with a starry cast from 1967 is TildyDiva’s Favorite Verdi Performance
William Guanbo Su and Ann Hallenberg are compelling in The English Concert’s presentation of Handel‘s Hercules at Carnegie Hall.
This clip is a strong case for leaving non-operatic music alone.
Anticipating the first new local Aïda in thirty-six years, Chris’s Cache revisits Verdi’s popular opera in four unusually interesting in-house recordings from the Met 1961-1976.
On this day in 1951 soprano Victoria de los Ángeles made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Marguerite
As said at the beginning, I implied I’d rather see Don Carlo(s) and listen to Forza.
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.
To give an idea of how well Perry Como was able to “assume” different vocal identities, here he is doing his mega #1 1953 hit, “Don’t Let The Stars Get In Your Eyes.”
On this day in 1959 soprano Leonie Rysanek made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Lady Macbeth.
On this day in 1951 soprano Victoria de los Angeles made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Marguerite.
For the fourth annual edition of “Handel for my birthday” Trove Thursday serves up three heaping portions of “old-fashioned oratorio.”
On the 21st of this month Romanian soprano Virginia Zeani will celebrate her 95th birthday and Trove Thursday salutes her versatility with two markedly different 20th century works: Menotti’s The Consul and Mascagni’s Il Piccolo Marat, one of many collaborations with her husband Nicola Rossi-Lemeni.
On this day in 1951 soprano Victoria de los Angeles made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Marguerite.
Today’s offering is an electric performance of Verdi’s early potboiler Attila conducted by Giuseppe Sinopoli.
With February 14th falling on a Sunday, there will be no Valentine’s Day Met performance this year.
Between them, Maria Guleghina, Marcello Giordani, James Morris and John Del Carlo have nearly 150 combined years of service on stage.
With help from the Met’s invaluable performance archive, here is a look back at just some of what you could have seen, and perhaps did see, on October 31st through the years at the Met.
A great man has passed and our consolation is that so much of his art has been preserved for us on recordings.
According to Mary Garden’s autobiography, Claude Debussy first encountered the Scottish-born diva at the Opéra Comique. After rehearsing her at the piano in a few scenes from his newly completed opera, Debussy said to Garden: “To think that you had to come from the cold far North to create my Mélisande.” He then turned to…
A quintessential theater man as well as a brilliant conductor, James Levine rightfully chose not only the five-act version of Don Carlo for this 1980 performance but begins the opera as Verdi had originally conceived it. The Woodcutters chorus and the episode in which Elisabetta gives her necklace to a destitute woman are pages essential to…
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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