Shrieking violet
Diana Damrau‘s performance as Violetta was the work of a very ordinary artist, one susceptible to vocal flubs, poor intonation, and an all too banal approach operatic performance.
Juan Diego Florez
75 pieces since 2006 — in 23 roles, at 13 companies, most often at Metropolitan Opera.
75
pieces
23
roles
13
companies
21
years
By role
Role Alfredo
Role Almaviva
LA thinks pink
Vocal glamour in abundance highlighted the opening performance of LA Opera’s Il barbiere di Siviglia on November 29 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion, with much buzz attendant on the company debuts of Rossini experts Juan Diego Flórez and Joyce DiDonato. Adding excitement was the Figaro of Nathan Gunn, who played with Errol Flynn panache, and […]
Role Arturo
Critical addition
Very few things intrigue me as much as analyzing belcanto operas, comparing their several versions and examining the composers’ second thoughts, modifications and revisions that, willingly or unwillingly, they made to their scores. I was already salivating when I heard that the Teatro Comunale di Bologna was going to perform Vincenzo Bellini’s I Puritani in […]
Role Comte Ory
Below the belt
Three of the Met’s most cunning vocalists, Juan Diego Flórez, Joyce DiDonato and Diana Damrau, wrap their tongues around the trio from Le Comte Ory.
Role Count Almaviva
Married to their jobs
Ahead of their opening in Don Carlo in Dallas tonight, Christopher Corwin chats with Nicole Car and Étienne Dupuis — and offers a special edition of Chris’s Cache!
Role Don Carlos
(Yet more) Thoughts on ‘Don Carlos’: Coronations and finales
In any case, we are now in the Queen’s garden of the Palace in Madrid. It is the day before the coronation of King Philip. Coronation? What coronation?
Role Don Ramiro
The year in Yohalem
My memory is fading but the events I recall most vividly of the last season seem largely to have been concert performances.
Role Elvino
Dream girl
Whatever happened to Stefania Bonfadelli?
Happy endings
Let me take you back, Parterreians, to the spring of 2009. Shortly before the Met’s new La sonnambula opened, murmurings began to be heard, rumors began to circulate. After the open dress rehearsal, reports were filed as opera fans looked on in horror. At the première, a shell-shocked audience rained down boos on the production […]
i wake up screaming
[Our Own Gualtier Malde (along with a few thousand other people) attended the public dress rehearsal of the Met’s new production of La sonnambula this morning. Here is his report.] Innocence, rustic naiveté and virginity just don’t get no respect no more. I should know, I grew up way out in central New Jersey and […]
Role Ernesto
Bachelor party
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.
About a boy
These days a cadre of voluble opera-goers regularly issues dire warnings that anyone about to attend this or that production at the Met should close her eyes and just listen rather than witness yet another Peter Gelb regie “atrocity.”
Role Fadinard
The farce of destiny
The chaos is nonstop, the comedy is broad and physical, and requires a large ensemble of singers who can execute Rossinian polysyllabic patter while taking pratfalls.
Role Florville
La farsa del destino
There might be nothing in the world as joyous as a Rossini overture.
Role Hoffmann
Contes stop won’t stop
Juan Diego Flórez and Damiano Michieletto concoct an absinthe-fueled fever dream in a new DVD from The Royal Ballet and Opera and Opusarte.
Role Idreno
Tales of an evil queen
Beethoven expressed it best when he reportedly threw Rossini shade: “Any other other style than opera buffa would do violence to your nature.”
Role le chevalier Danois
I put a spell on you
Armide with a superbly grand Francophone heroine in Karina Gauvin and conducted by the always excellent Ivor Bolton.
Role Le Comte Ory
Count me in
The legions of New York opera buffs who now can’t talk about anything but Javier Camarena will be happy to know that there’s now a DVD release
of their new favorite tenor in Rossini’s Le Comte Ory available.
Role Nemorino
Teenager in love
L’elisir d’amore, Donizetti’s evergreen comedy about young love, returned to the Met last night with a strong cast, a high energy level from all the performers, and last but not least, a very full house.
Role Octavian
American Beauty Rosenkavalier
[La Cieca is delighted to introduce a new reviewer, @scazzasofija.] I found Rosenkavalier (Met, Oct. 13) to be mostly sublime. My quibbles come from a preference for Kleiber’s tempos. I found that de Waart was waving his arms as fast as he could for the beginning, but I think the prelude and up until the […]
Role Orphée
Orphée descending
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 […]
Role Orpheus
Down in the depths
If opera as a genre in justified in its claim to one particular story, history confirms that the Orpheus myth would be that story.
Hell and back
A simply gorgeous performance of Gluck’s Orphée et Euridice starring Juan Diego Flórez.
Role Otello
La figlia dell’aria
For her third solo recording, Olga Peretyatko summons the two men who launched her career less than a decade ago
Role Riccardo
Unmasked
It is quite unusual to stage a new indoor production in the middle of summer in Italy when so many outdoor venues are open, but general manager of La Scala Stéphane Lissner – who will leave next year – decided to close the first half of this Verdi-Wagner year with a beloved hit of il cigno di Busseto.
Role Tonio
Can you ‘Fille’ the love tonight
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.
‘fille’ a song coming on
[Our Own Gualtier Maldè reports from this afternoon’s dress rehearsal of La Fille du Régiment] The Met has another hit on its hands — though not a totally new one, this production and cast already having triumphed at Covent Garden and the Vienna Staatsoper. Laurent Pelly (who vies with Davide Alagna and Mark Streshinsky as […]
Role Vilfredo d'Ivanhoe
Give me the Templar life
Otto Nicolai’s Il Templario with Juan Diego Flórez, Clémentine Margaine and Luca Salsi.
Win a Free Ticket to Opening Night at the Met!
Quinn Kelsey and Lise Davidsen star in the Met's new Macbeth. We're giving away one ticket, so screw your courage to the sticking place and enter now!
I’ll take the fall
The days are getting shorter, but you can keep the prattle going this fall’s Talk of the Town! You will, you can, you must join in the discussion about: Great mezzo soprano performances (October),
Gained in translation (November), Teleport me back to… (December).
