Let’s all cast our minds back to March of 2020. Or, better, let’s not.
Franco Corelli was born on April 8, 1921 in Ancona and Trove Thursday celebrates the matinee-idol tenor’s centenary with a pair of his rare non-Met US appearances; seducing Marie Collier in La Fanciulla del West and vacillating between Ilva Ligabue and Grace Bumbry in Il Trovatore.
Off-and-on since last fall my PPP (Personal Pandemic Project) has been assembling a chronology of the American Opera Society. For 19 years beginning in 1951 it presented a remarkable series of concert performances of works unperformed by either the Met or New York City Opera.
The Met recently submitted another eye-roll inducing entry for the Woke Olympics with their Women’s History Month slate.
Giacomo Puccini’s La fanciulla del West may have its detractors (Stravinsky referred to it as a “horse-opera’) but you will not find me among them.
On the 21st of this month Romanian soprano Virginia Zeani will celebrate her 95th birthday and Trove Thursday salutes her versatility with two markedly different 20th century works: Menotti’s The Consul and Mascagni’s Il Piccolo Marat, one of many collaborations with her husband Nicola Rossi-Lemeni.
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.
Somewhere in all of this, I decided it was time to try Callas.
A theater-critic friend of my father once said that Laurence Olivier played American like it was a character choice.
Who could doubt that Leontyne Price contains multitudes?
My introduction to the work was the Angel LP from 1964 with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and George Szell… and yes, I’m aware that it’s a performance that tends to divide rooms.
Bess is clearly Angel Blue’s part—set in the richest and most shimmering upper middle portion of her voice, and optimally suited to her persona.
Otto Nicolai’s Il Templario with Juan Diego Flórez, Clémentine Margaine and Luca Salsi.
When soprano Yihan Duan started to sing her aria, you could feel an almost electric charge that something special was happening.
While Luciano Pavarotti may have brought opera to the people, once he realized how lucrative it could be, there was a string of promoters who helped him turn all that adoration into cold hard cash.
Verdi’s Giovanna d’Arco in a rare NYC concert performance with Margaret Price, Carlo Bergonzi and Sherrill Milnes.
Sunday’s “Rising Stars in Concert”, featuring the Ryan Opera Center ensemble and members of the Lyric Opera Orchestra, was a stirring and entertainingly musical afternoon.
“Trove Thursday” drafts a 1960s All-Star team for Verdi’s Il Trovatore broadcast from the Teatro Colón.
In addition to Jessye Norman, this event paid homage to the shamefully obscure soprano Sissieretta Jones—once billed as “The Black Patti.”
At one point I spent a couple of months on the dole and dollar record shopping had a number of obvious virtues as a pastime.
Anna Netrebko sang throughout with a palpable sense of joy and ease in vocal production, never a hint of strain or any moment forced.
Washington Concert Opera on the occasion of Gounod’s 200th birthday presented the American premiere of his first opera, Sapho.
The Albanian soprano Ermonela Jaho is surely the reason that Covent Garden has made a commercial release of this “Live to Cinemas” relay from March of 2017.
The career of our beloved Renée Fleming deserves to continue… by whatever means necessary.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
×
Sign up for Parterre’s free newsletter.
Exclusive opera reviews, commentary, and top reads
delivered to your email weekly…ish.