The new Norma
In a splashy new recording of Norma, Marina Rebeka “is doing something very untoward, and it appears destructive to her voice.” It has Niel Rishoi worried.
Marilyn Horne
135 pieces since 2007 — in 20 roles, at 14 companies, most often at Metropolitan Opera.
135
pieces
20
roles
14
companies
20
years
By role
By company
Metropolitan Opera 11
Carnegie Hall 5
American Opera Society 3
Lyric Opera of Chicago 3
San Francisco Opera 3
Cincinnati May Festival 2
La Scala 2
Gelsenkirchen Opera 1
LA Opera 1
Metropolitan Opera Orchestra 1
New Jersey Symphony 1
Opera Orchestra of New York 1
Royal Opera Covent Garden 1
Santa Fe Opera 1
Role Adalgisa
Role Arsace
Color Me Barbiere
Live opera returns to Lincoln Center when Teatro Nuovo presents Il Barbiere di Siviglia on July 27 and 28.
Semiramide
Produced at Carnegie Hall by Matthew Epstein in 1983 with June Anderson, Marilyn Horne, Samuel Ramey and Douglas Ahlstedt with Henry Lewis conducting.
Gilt trip
As a diehard completist I felt guilty as the Met’s scattered, campy revival of Semiramide lumbered toward its abrupt conclusion after nearly four hours.
Horne in the morning and June at night
Semiramide produced at Carnegie Hall by Matthew Epstein in 1983 with June Anderson, Marilyn Horne, Samuel Ramey and Douglas Ahlstedt with Henry Lewis conducting.
Chris and the pirates
Back when I was a good boy, I told my parents that my goal in getting my first job was to earn money for college; however, my real motive was to make my secret wish come true—to be able to consort with “pirates.”
Role Bertarido
Love, loss, and what I sang
Sunday is Handel’s 335th birthday, an event Trove Thursday celebrates with Rodelinda, Regina de’Longobardi, one of the composer’s most popular works.
Role Carmen
I, Franco
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.
Mais nous voyons à nouveau La Carmencita
The opening night of the Metropolitan Opera of September 1972 was supposed to be the dawn of a new era.
Role Eboli
A whole can of worms
On this day in 1979 the Metropolitan Opera presented a new production of Verdi’s Don Carlo.
The Verdi thing
On Thursday June 30th, San Francisco Opera closed their summer season with a one-night-only special concert celebrating Eun Sun Kim’s first season as the Caroline H. Hume Music Director, in an aptly named concert “Eun Sun Kim Conducts Verdi.”
Role Giovanna Seymour
Night of the comet
The American Opera Society introduced many important singers to New York City audiences, but few were as controversial as the Greek soprano Elena Souliotis; Trove Thursday offers her local debut (at age 23) in Anna Bolena with Marilyn Horne, Janet Baker, Plácido Domingo and Carlo Cava.
Role Isabella
Turkish sound bath
A brilliant L’italiana in Algeri in Rome has Larry Wolff once again thinking about “singing Turks”
Role La Fée
Testament of youth
“Trove Thursday” offers a vernal take on Massenet’s magical Cendrillon (in English) featuring two sopranos: Margaret Price—not yet 30—and Anne Pashley, then just 35.
Role Leonore
Wishin’ and hopin’ and thinkin’ and prayin’
Eli Jacobson inaugurates parterre box’s new “Perspectives on the Aria” feature with a deep dive into Leonore’s “Abscheulicher!” from Beethoven’s Fidelio which returns to the Metropolitan Opera tomorrow with the Met’s current dramatic soprano star Lise Davidsen as Leonore.
Role Malcom
Lady in the bark
Three decades before Joyce DiDonato and Juan Diego Flórez dazzled the world with their La donna del lago roadshow, another deluxe team headed by Frederica von Stade and Marilyn Horne shone in Rossini’s neglected masterpiece.
Role Musetta
“The trouble is you think you have time”
“Trove Thursday” presents Falla’s La Vida Breve in a live concert version with Victoria de los Angeles, one of Spain’s greatest singers, as Salud.
Role Orfeo
My soul is eager for this kind of pain
Ross Wassermann tracks the development of “Che farò senza Euridice?” — and “J’ai perdu mon Eurydice” — for this month’s Perspectives on an Aria
Pretty little lyre
Starring Jamie Barton, Orfeo ed Euridice returns to the Met next month for the first time in more than a decade so “Trove Thursday” offers two complete live versions of Gluck’s masterwork.
Every day a little death
Neumeier adapted the story close to home, making Orpheus a choreographer and his wife a star ballerina.
Trick or trill
With help from the Met’s invaluable performance archive, here is a look back at just some of what you could have seen, and perhaps did see, on October 31st through the years at the Met.
Role Orlando
I have a song to sing, O!
The lovely English soprano Valerie Masterson turns 84 today, prompting Trove Thursday to present her in a pair of her specialties.
Fast and furious
A 1984 performance of Handel’s Orlando with Marilyn Horne, Valerie Masterson, Marvis Martin, Jeffery Gall and Robert Lloyd, conducted by Charles Mackerras.
Role Queen of Eldorado
Panglossed over
Celebrating Lenny’s 100th this year has made Candide ubiquitous at opera houses worldwide.
Role Rinaldo
Less than hero
Iestyn Davies’s theatrical blandness combined with his vocal unsuitability for the role left a hole at the center of Rinaldo.
Home brew
An extraordinarily rich variety of opera happens locally, under the umbrella of New York Opera Fest.
Role Romeo
I Capuleti ed I Montecchi
Joining the Met’s week of bel canto reruns and Tuesday’s premiere of Teatro Nuovo’s exciting new project, Trove Thursday presents Bellini’s I Capuleti ed I Montecchi with Tatiana Troyanos and Cecilia Gasdia.
Role Rosina
Scritto in ciel
In our circle, Mexico City in the summer was the opera capital of the world from the late 1940s and early 1950.
Role Samira
“Ghosts” of honor
John Corigliano‘s first and second symphonies won the Grawemeyer and the Pulitzer, respectively; the premiere of his Third Symphony wasn’t even reviewed by the Times. His score for The Red Violin won an Oscar™; his score for Edge of Darkness ended up on the cutting room floor. Is there an American composer at once more […]
Role Tancredi
Come to the record store in old Peking
In the lead up to LA Opera’s mounting of Turandot on May 18th (hooray!) I thought I’d touch on some of my favorite recordings and new re-masters I’ve discovered. I have them all.
The boys from Syracuse
Trove Thursday begins February with two striking versions of Rossini’s Tancredi.
Role Zia Principessa
Goddess in three persons
Patrick Mack looks back on “a great, nay, historic evening,” Renata Scotto‘s 1981 performance of Il trittico, now newly available on Met Opera on Demand.