For many opera lovers of the Baby Boomer generation, German bass Kurt Moll (1938-2017) was Sarastro, exuding wisdom and kindness through his unaffected bearing and incomparably rich, homogeneous sound.
And what a luxury it is to experience this musically outstanding Parsifal with a cast of this caliber!
Chris’s Cache wraps up November with Régine Crespin’s Chicago Leonore; two rare Met Fidelios headed by Christa Ludwig and Hildegard Behrens; and a concert performance with Birgit Nilsson led by Leonard Bernstein, plus a final twist: excerpts of Carol Vaness in Leonore.
After attending three Met Lohengrins I’ve gone into Wagner withdrawal waiting for the upcoming Der Fliegende Holländer.
On October 14, 1979 I spent my birthday attending my first all-star opera gala, thrilled at the chance to hear some of the great singers I’d only experienced on LPs, broadcasts or via my pirate reel-to-reel tapes.
Gabriela Benacková, one of Trove Thursday’s favorite sopranos, turns 75 tomorrow, so we celebrate with two rare complete Verdi portrayals.
During the 70s, Kiri Te Kanawa, particularly singing Mozart, became one of my favorite singers.
With La Scala’s plan to open on December 7 with a new Lucia di Lammermoor thwarted, Trove Thursday sets its Wayback Machine to nearly 50 years ago to present two of the 20th century’s greatest madwomen—Joan Sutherland and Beverly Sills—denounced by Plàcido Domingo and Alfredo Kraus respectively, with the former pair consoled by Kurt Moll‘s luxurious Raimundo.
“Trove Thursday” pays tribute to the great German bass Kurt Moll
Our selected Rosenkavalier video overview closes out the 20th-century selections, crosses the millennial mark, and includes the first of our performances to depart from the opera’s prescribed 18th-century setting.
Sandrine Piau‘s lovely recital with pianist Susan Manoff at The Philadelphia Chamber Music Society on February 14 entered around the themes of sleep, dreams and waking.
Patrice Chéreau, the humanist in provocateur’s clothing, returned to Wagner in 2007 at La Scala with Daniel Barenboim and Waltraud Meier.
This week’s “Trove Thursday” features noted Wagnerian Hildegard Behrens revisiting Rusalka, one of her early, lyric roles.
When LaCieca asked me to choose my favorite live recording, I had to think… and think.
It never occurred to me that each tape had to be individually dubbed or that others, maybe many, many others, might also be ordering tapes at the same time.
Defying a computer breakdown and an online outage, I fled to a smoky Iranian Internet café to upload this performance of Don Giovanni. It was worth the trouble.
It’s easy to see why the Met has chosen to include this 1982 performance of Der Rosenkavalier in their James Levine: Celebrating 40 Years at the Met – DVD Box Set: the marathon evening is a triumph for Levine from the frenzied blend of waltz melodies in the overture to the final, birdsong-like notes of…
Blazing Jupiter, the Jovial Star, my personal magical azimuth, plus Perseid meteors wafting about, burning out as do our souls, as we arrived home from Seattle Opera’s new production of Tristan und Isolde.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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