A new recording by the London Symphony Orchestra is the latest landmark in a spring full of Janácek‘s Jenufa
Cameron Kelsall reports on a transcendent Jenufa from the Cleveland Orchestra
Mahler’s 8th Symphony is an enormous and enigmatic work.
Hailed as the first opera by an African-American composer performed at the Metropolitan Opera, Fire Shut Up in My Bones was a huge audience and box office hit in the Fall of 2021 when it reopened the Met after two seasons shut down by COVID-19.
“None of that sentimental crap, okay?”
In the five short years that I’ve been in New York, I have seen that crusty old Franco Zeffirelli production of La bohème more times than I can count on one hand. And there are certainly times when that peeling mise-en-scène really shows its age.
At all of these vocal contests, including this one, I find myself fascinated and perplexed by the same question: What exactly are the judges looking for?
To paraphrase Terence Blanchard’s Champion, what makes an opera an opera?
Angel Blue‘s refulgent, lush soprano blooms as Violetta’s vocal lines broaden and soar.
Step aside, Texas: “Everything is bigger at Aida” is the motto of the Met’s second attempt at retiring Sonja Frisell’s colossal production.
A co-production of Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Metropolitan Opera, and Los Angeles Opera, Fire Shut Up In My Bones blazed into Chicago as a stunning, highly emotional and moving performance.
With composer Terence Blanchard and librettist Kasi Lemmons‘ incendiary Fire Shut Up in My Bones, the Met makes long overdue history and Will Liverman ascends to superstardom.
While the Met reruns over-familiar HDs, Trove Thursday offers a Puccini rarity: Edgar, the composer’s second opera, starring Latonia Moore and Marcello Giordani.
Otto Nicolai’s Il Templario with Juan Diego Flórez, Clémentine Margaine and Luca Salsi.
A near-full house attended the Jessye Norman Memorial Celebration at the Met on Sunday afternoon, the auditorium packed with family, friends, colleagues, and fans of the late soprano, who passed away on September 30 of this year.
Opera’s latest superstar, Angel Blue, in a compleat and enthralling portrayal, gloriously sung and rivetingly acted.
Porgy and Bess, George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward’s 1935 “folk” opera, graced the stage of Dutch National Opera for the first time last month, and it was resounding success from start to finish.
L’Arlesiana in a vibrant live performance from a dozen years ago with Giuseppe Filianoti, Latonia Moore and Marianne Cornetti.
Like most directors of this opera this century, David Alden is keen to outline the helplessness of women in the face of 19th century patriarchy.
“Trove Thursday” ushers in February with Catalani’s La Wally with a mountain-top cast of Renata Tebaldi, Renata Scotto, Mario del Monaco, Giangiacomo Guelfi and Giorgio Tozzi conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini.
“Trove Thursday” presents a performance from 40 years ago: an inspired Renata Scotto as Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur.
You’ve got your “Night in the Museum,”and your “It’s All In Her Head” and your “Pantomimes of Childhood Trauma” and that’s all before halftime.
Published in 1975, James McCourt’s novel Mawrdew Czgowchwz is engaged with a longing for the divine.
I’m a long-time fan of the Opera in English series funded by The Peter Moores Foundation that started, fittingly enough, with conductor Reginald Goodall’s performances of Wagner’s Ring cycle recorded live from the London Coliseum and released by EMI
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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