The recent highly hyped studio recording of Puccini’s Turandot left me greatly disappointed.
A stark, sweltering performance of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk shocks the Komische Oper Berlin.
The production is based on the Elisabeth Fritzl story, and it really made me reconsider this opera’s fairy tale storyline.
Next week Puccini’s La Rondine returns to the Met for the first time in eleven years, so Chris’s Cache offers three quite diverse sopranos as Magda: Ljuba Welitsch, Virginia Zeani, and Cristina Gallardo-Domâs.
Boston Symphony Orchestra recently confirmed an infinitely renewable contract upon Andris Nelsons, its music director since 2014. To understand why, one needed little more evidence than the outfit’s recent visit to Carnegie Hall.
The flashing eyes, the floating hair, and the inexplicable barefootnedness during the second half of Saturday night’s performance confirmed one thing: Kristine Opolais is back.
On the train ride home I was thinking that I don’t want to see or hear Norma ever again.
Starting March 19, Vocal Arts DC’s latest virtual concert lavishes listeners with a sumptuous recital of art songs from the Norwegian soprano Lise Davidsen.
The proceedings took the virtue of longevity too much to heart; the night stretched on interminably.
Winsome, tony, and studded with overbooked bistros, Tanglewood is not exactly crawling with bohemians these days.
So I just got out of the Lohengrin prima at the ROH and I’m itching to share my thoughts.
A heady audience paid top price to pack Carnegie Hall Thursday for just 80 minutes of unstaged Wagner.
A Met HD cinema broadcast of Puccini’s Tosca on Saturday, 27 January, concluded the first run of a production marked by upheaval in the ten months between its announcement and its New Year’s Eve premiere.
In the midst of Tosca month “Trove Thursday” assembles from the 60s to the 80s an Il Trittico in which each opera features an important Italian star.
The Met got exactly what it asked for: a safely opulent, resolutely unchallenging Tosca that was far from shabby or little but couldn’t have been less shocking
Last night was my fourth or fifth wade into the slough of Bartlett Sher’s production of Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann at the Met since its premiere in 2009.
For those who thought opera to be a rare enough commodity that there shouldn’t be duels, Saturday night in the Berkshires offered the odd rebuttal.
Anticipation of events like the Metropolitan Opera’s 50th Anniversary bash turns me back into the newly opera-soused kid who begged his parents to let him watch the highlights of the Bing Gala on the family color television.
Going into Washington National Opera’s final presentation of the season, Madama Butterfly, I feared that I might be geisha’d out.
Since no doubt the New York contingent of the cher public are already shuddering in anticipation of a Kristine Opolais Tosca as a “gala” New Year’s Eve treat, La Cieca thought you might enjoy—again, surely too strong a word—a preview of sorts.
So, how excited are you to read another piece about the Mary Zimmerman Rusalka?
The subject of timidity has been in my thoughts in these waning days of February 2017. One would almost think there had been some big announcement recently, preceded by a series of smaller ones, to turn a U.S.-based opera fan’s thoughts in this direction.
With a cast of stellar singers and uneven direction by Mary Zimmerman, Dvorák’s Rusalka debuts in a new production at the Metropolitan Opera.
Today’s Rusalka video overview covers filmed performances of Dvorák’s opera since 2010.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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