On this day in 1978, the Metropolitan Opera presented a new production of Donizetti’s La favorita.
Today is Mozart’s 266th birthday and I had already planned a Trove Thursday celebration when I learned that Maria Ewing had died on January 9.
Produced at Carnegie Hall by Matthew Epstein in 1983 with June Anderson, Marilyn Horne, Samuel Ramey and Douglas Ahlstedt with Henry Lewis conducting.
I need to get something off my chest. I love bel canto.
Following classic recordings documenting the work of Karl Böhm and Herbert von Karajan. Orfeo’s 150 Years Wiener Staatsoper box moves on to new releases that are seeing their first incarnation on an officially available disc.
“Trove Thursday” presents a complete Prodanà Nevesta (aka Die Verkaufte Braut, of course) by Smetana plus extended excerpts from a broadcast of Spontini’s La Vestale in its rarely heard original French version.
Semiramide produced at Carnegie Hall by Matthew Epstein in 1983 with June Anderson, Marilyn Horne, Samuel Ramey and Douglas Ahlstedt with Henry Lewis conducting.
Can it all be true? She did what? He said what?
Kitsch is alive and well in Rossini’s La Cenerentola at the War Memorial.
I got quite a surprise when I opened the latest packet of goodies from La Cieca – a DVD of Orphée aux Enfers, but in German as Orpheus in der Unterwelt.
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.
Juan Diego Flórez is without question a superstar of bel canto repertory, but the recent release of the recording of his role debut as Orphée in Gluck’s Orphée et Eurydice at the Teatro Real in Madrid raises some interesting questions. Among these questions, first and foremost is the nature of Orpheus, and whether Flórez has…
Among the ten musical feasts that Paris staged to celebrate the coronation of the last Bourbon king, Charles X, in 1825, Il viaggio a Reims by Gioachino Rossini had undoubtedly the highest profile. Others, including La Route de Reims, a pastiche of Mozart music, are now long forgotten, and Rossini’s score once seriously risked suffering…
Like Liza Minnelli at the Palace or Nomi Malone in Goddess, Renée Fleming‘s Thaïs is better understood as diva event than Gesamtkunstwerk. It’s an opportunity to watch a star lady do her voodoo in a work that exists largely to showcase her glamour and appeal.
Our Own Gualtier Maldè reports: Not every opera has to be a masterpiece. I couldn’t subsist on a steady diet of Tristan und Isolde, Die Zauberfloete, Fidelio, plus Otello, Falstaff et al. Frankly the occasional light comic bonbon or trashy but fun melodramatic tunefest makes a nice palate cleanser. I am talking Adriana Lecouvreur, La…
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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