Grand Tier Grab Bag hearkens back to the days when Sondra Radvanovsky — who is singing no Verdi at all next season — seemed like the Verdi soprano of reference.
Chris’s Cache celebrates Karita Mattila, one of its favorite singers, in a special double-bill featuring the soprano performing Janáček, one of her signature composers.
Wagner month at Parterre Box concludes in grand and explosive style: octogenarian Hanna Schwarz and sexagenarian Karita Mattila in crucial moments from Das Rheingold and Lohengrin.
A starry cast is hampered by Christof Loy‘s dour production of Rusalka in Barcelona
Following last week’s performances in Cleveland, Ronnie Banerjee compares six different versions of the Kostelnicka’s monologue from Leos Janácek’s Jenufa for “Perspectives on an Aria”
The Met’s mostly successful revivals of The Queen of Spades and La bohème showcase the returns of Sonya Yoncheva and Corinne Winters
Cameron Kelsall reports on a transcendent Jenufa from the Cleveland Orchestra
Asmik Grigorian’s scorching turn in Il trittico in Paris has Nigel Wilkinson wondering, ‘what is it that makes Americans so weepy?’
Aga Mikolaj (born Agnieszka Beata Mikolajczyk) sang Strauss and Mozart with a gorgeous, shimmering tone.
In 2011, Sondra Radvanovsky‘s Tosca proved promising; fourteen years later, it was absolutely magnificent, a completely satisfying musical and dramatic embodiment of a challenging role by an artist at the peak of her powers.
Judith Malafronte sits down with bass David Leigh who debuts as Rocco in Washington National Opera’s production of Fidelio next week
Following Gundula Janowitz and Janet Baker, Chris’s Cache sends birthday greetings to another favorite diva—Karita Matilla—with a quartet of broadcasts.
Don’t cry for me, Birgit Nilsson
The new Opera News section of OPERA magazine already seems to be getting smaller, but the March issue features a long interview with Carol Vaness about Donna Anna.
Nothing says “diva” like an insane recital program.
Zachary Woolfe reflects on the legacy of parterre box founder James Jorden and three decades of “remembering when opera was queer and dangerous and exciting and making it that way again”
Today’s Chris’s Cache features live recordings of Otello most noteworthy for their Desdemonas: (in chronological order) Teresa Stratas, Julia Varady, Eva Marton and Karita Mattila.
On June 16, San Francisco Opera concluded their excellent Centennial Season with a heartfelt 100th Anniversary Concert, featuring a starry cast, three conductors (including current and former Music Directors) and the SF Opera Orchestra and Chorus.
If April is the cruelest month, it may be that spring’s arrival brings far too many things to do and see.
In Richard Strauss’s Arabella, the heroine is consumed with finding the right man—der Richtige—but who is the right Arabella?
This month, both the Paris Opéra and the Opéra-Comique are mounting seminal works about unhinged anti-heroines who meet their downfall after falling head-over-heels for an unavailable, deeply unattainable man – Salome, in the case of the Opéra; and Armide, in the case of the Opéra-Comique.
Trove Thursday previews next week’s BBC Proms presentation of Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius with a 2008 broadcast conducted by Colin Davis with Sarah Connolly, Ben Heppner and Gerald Finley.
The Met’s recent Ariadne auf Naxos and Elektra combo left me wanting more and more Richard Strauss, so Trove Thursday offers a complete Capriccio with Jonas Kaufmann (his one-and-only Flamand) and Christopher Maltman vying for Soile Isokoski.
In the month and a half leading to Bernard Haitink’s passing on October 21, my AirPods constantly channeled a musical festival of sorts centered on the Dutch giant’s expansive discography.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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