An unholy decadence
On this day in 1966 the Metropolitan Opera presented a new production of Elektra.
Leonie Rysanek
79 pieces since 2005 — in 17 roles, at 9 companies, most often at Metropolitan Opera.
79
pieces
17
roles
9
companies
22
years
By role
Role Chrysothemis
Wien to me
Orfeo’s 150 Years box chronologically documents some of the finest nights of live opera from the Wiener Staatsoper in the years following its restoration in 1955.
Old school
This week, I offer you a classic rendition of Richard Strauss’ tale of the House of Atreus starring Ursula Schröder-Feinen, Astrid Varnay, Leonie Rysanek, Theo Adam, and Hans Hopf under Karl Böhm’s direction.
Not only with words, but with lively gestures
“I will never sing the role again. It was frightful. We were a set of madwomen…There is nothing beyond Elektra. We have lived and reached the furthest boundaries in dramatic writing for the voice with Wagner. But Richard Strauss goes beyond him. His singing voices are lost. We have come to a full stop.”
Role Clytemnestra
Mounting dread
On this day in 1992 the Metropolitan Opera presented a [disastrous] new production of Elektra.
Sacred monsters!
Too late, I’m afraid, for a holiday gift, but what looks to be the must-have CD of the season has just become available. It’s a “new” Elektra, — actually a release of a live 1990 performance with the Valhalla-level pairing of Dame Gwyneth Jones and Leonie Rysanek as daughter and mother. (This is of course […]
Role Countess
Final curtain
“Trove Thursday” pays tribute to Dmitri Hrovostovsky with a broadcast of his final new role, Rubinstein’s The Demon.
Role Desdemona
A favorite Verdi performance from John Danaher
My favorite Verdi performance is the iconic 1960 RCA recording of Otello with Jon Vickers in the title role and the Rome Opera Orchestra and Chorus under the baton of the masterly Tullio Serafin.
Role Die Kaiserin
Sind das die Cherubim, die ihre Stimmen heben?
It’s time for the annual celebration of the birth of Leonie Rysanek (who, as you know, is your alte Jungfer’s Diva of Divas).
Role Elisabetta
Battlemania
Miss Battle was greeted with a thunderous ovation befitting a beloved singer at the end of an illustrious career.
Role Empress
Storm of the century
A sense of celebration was definitely in the air last Thursday at the Vienna State Opera.
Role Gioconda
Thoughts on La Gioconda: the others
Yes, there were other Giocondas if not of quite the same distinction. Chronologically…
Role Herodias
Head over heels
I guess you have spoken: “Bring us insane divas in operas we already know!”
Role Jenufa
The favorite
Gabriela Benacková, one of Trove Thursday’s favorite sopranos, turns 75 tomorrow, so we celebrate with two rare complete Verdi portrayals.
Role Kaiserin
The right box
Let’s call this meeting to order. My name is Patrick and I’m a boxset-aholic.
Role Kostelnicka
All about her stepmother
A new recording by the London Symphony Orchestra is the latest landmark in a spring full of Janácek‘s Jenufa
Bye bye baby
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”
Role Kostelnicka Buryjovka
An old-fashioned wedding
Jungfer Marianne Leitmetzerin notes: while this performance of Janácek’s Jenufafeatures the same three principal singers from the legendary Carnegie Hall concert of 1988, the fact that it is a staged performance raises the temperature even higher.
Role Lady Macbeth
Sophisticated Lady
On this day in 1959 soprano Leonie Rysanek made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Lady Macbeth.
The lion in stereo
A great man has passed and our consolation is that so much of his art has been preserved for us on recordings.
Role Primadonna/Ariadne
Stage beauty
Since the 1916 version of Ariadne auf Naxos which we all know and love had its premiere at Wiener Staatsoper, it seems most appropriate to bring you this 1967 performance from the same venue, with a legendary cast at its zenith.
Role Salome
Surfacing: an appreciation in 20 fragments
I struggle to articulate the notion of an erotics of art.
Sie ist ein Ungeheuer, deine Tochter
The focus in this 1974 performance of Salome from Orange is (mostly) on the Herodes of Jon Vickers.
Das glückliche Ungeheuer
What better way to welcome Halloween than with that scariest of all operas, Salome, in a performance culled from one of Mike Richter‘s magnificent CD-ROMs?
Winter camp
The hallmark of Camp is the spirit of extravagance. Camp taste turns its back on the good-bad axis of ordinary aesthetic judgment. Camp doesn’t reverse things. It doesn’t argue that the good is bad, or the bad is good. What it does is to offer for art (and life) a different — a supplementary — […]
Role Sieglinde
Out of the past
Myto’s transfer of Herbert von Karajan’s star-bedecked 1958 Die Walküre from La Scala gives collectors on a budget access to one of the legendary performances committed to tape.
Le déjeuner sans l’herb
Five decades before the Met turned to computer-assisted planks to help tell the story of Wagner’s Ring cycle, the company stirred controversy and comment with another staging of the tetralogy. General Manager Rudolf Bing imported a stark, abstract production from the Salzburg Festival in order to secure the services of Herbert von Karajan, who not […]