125 pieces since 2006 — in 20 roles, at 6 companies, most often at Metropolitan Opera.
16 pieces as Metropolitan Opera — stats above show all coverage for Luciano Pavarotti.
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It’s like making love with someone whose rap never ceases—and includes “helpful suggestions” about how you can be improving your game.
The American bass, a fixture of the Metropolitan Opera between 1967 and 2018, was 83.
Given the keen interest in recent posts of Met pirates of Montserrat Caballé in Verdi, Chris’s Cache concludes its trio with the Spanish soprano’s Met Violetta, along with additional Met in-house recordings of Virginia Zeani, Pilar Lorengar, Jeanette Pilou, and Joan Sutherland as Verdi’s doomed courtesan.
Two problematic 1990s Donizetti daughters
On this day in 1978, the Metropolitan Opera presented a new production of Donizetti’s La favorita.
Chris’s Cache sends Renata Scotto a valentine ahead of her 89th birthday next week with rare in-house recordings of eight (!) mid-career performances spanning 1971-1977.
Trove Thursday remembers Edita Gruberová with live recordings of two of the three operas I heard her perform at the Met: a 1985 Munich La Traviata with Neil Shicoff and Wolfgang Brendel conducted by Carlos Kleiber and an I Puritani from Vienna 1994 featuring two other artists who recently left us too soon: Marcello Giordani and Dmitri Hvorostovsky.
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.
I can’t think of an opera this year that I’ve enjoyed as much as Tuesday’s Met Macbeth, thanks especially to the smashing house debut of Italian soprano Anna Pirozzi as its blazing Madame M.
Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Die Tote Stadt in a 1967 Vienna broadcast appropriately featuring three American stars: John Alexander, Marilyn Zschau, and George London.
Tuesday the Met unveils its sixth new production of La Traviata since moving to Lincoln Center.
“Trove Thursday” gives a preview of Saint-Saëns’s Samson et Dalila with a broadcast featuring an unexpected temptress—Dolora Zajick—who will celebrate the 30th anniversary of her Met debut next month.
“Trove Thursday” celebrates with Carlos Kleiber conducting Johann Strauss, Jr.’s Die Fledermaus.
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.
The legendary Italian soprano Magda Olivero has died.
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 […]
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