A Faustian bargain
What we have here is the grandest opera never heard.
Marina Poplavskaya
17 pieces since 2009 — in 10 roles, at 3 companies, most often at Metropolitan Opera.
17
pieces
10
roles
3
companies
18
years
By role
Role Alice
Role Desdemona
Autumn leaves
It may have taken most of Verdi’s canon to do it, but the “Tutto Verdi” collection finally manages to do justice to Verdi in his last two operas.
Role Donna Anna
The beast with three backs
Among the “auditions” that have come flooding in from the cher public are reviews of three very different productions of Don Giovanni. Your doyenne has taken the liberty of combining the three critiques into a single posting, but she urges you to remember, remember well the names of the authors of this troika of treatises.
Role Elisabetta di Valois
Des grandeurs de ce monde
Don Carlo is truly a grand opera, Verdi’s biggest, no matter if it’s the four or five act version. It is a bitch.
Role Liu
Moving targets
In what may qualify as the most unholy alliance of Peter Gelb‘s tenure at the Met so far, since February the “Live in HD” performances from 2009 of both Turandot and Aida issued by Decca have been available from… Target. Only Target. They are scheduled for international release this July. Up until recently there has […]
Role Marguerite
Experiment in error
It is, as Noel Coward remarked, astonishing how potent cheap music is. According to Brockway and Weinstock’s World of Opera, Gounod’s Faust was performed, after a rather lackluster debut in 1859, a thousand times inParis at the Opera between 1869 and 1894—a gobsmacking average of once every nine days.
Role Tatiana
Through different eyes
I was reminded at the Met’s season premiere of Eugene Onegin Friday night always to expect the unexpected.
Role Tatyana
Same steppes, different dancers
Is there a more gorgeous male voice before the public today than Peter Mattei’s? Has Anna Netrebko ever sounded better?
Role Violetta
Three faces of Violetta
Christopher Corwin surveys the three Traviata casts — led by Lisette Oropesa, Rosa Feola, and Ermonela Jaho — at the Met this spring.
Role Violetta Valéry
New classic
Willy Decker’s Traviata has garnered praise from critics and audiences alike in the week since its Metropolitan premiere, but (as was to be expected) this praise comes over the complaints of a select few traditionalists, a handful of lonely boos amid the mostly enthusiastic applause. Their objection (as usual) is that Decker’s production betrays the […]