A well-known Met Aïda with a starry cast from 1967 is TildyDiva’s Favorite Verdi Performance
Claudio Abbado made his Met debut on 7 October 1968 conducting Verdi’s Don Carlo, led five more performances through 14 November, and then never returned. Chris’s Cache offers the only complete recording I’ve run across from that run.
As said at the beginning, I implied I’d rather see Don Carlo(s) and listen to Forza.
On this day in 2006 tenor Jonas Kaufmann made his Metropolitan Opera debut as Alfredo.
In any case, we are now in the Queen’s garden of the Palace in Madrid. It is the day before the coronation of King Philip. Coronation? What coronation?
My sister Julie celebrates an important birthday later this month which reminded me—as I also recalled I visiting her while she was living in Prague—that I should unearth Bohuslav Martin?’s Julietta with Lucia Popp and Dénes Gulyás for this week’s Trove Thursday.
I still remember, and some of it quite vividly, what it was like to experience Achim Freyer‘s intense and groundbreaking Ring production all these years later.
With most of us dug in for the duration, there’s no better time to tuck into a CD box set of neglected treasures. Not that I needed an excuse, mind you.
“Trove Thursday” presents a complete Prodanà Nevesta (aka Die Verkaufte Braut, of course) by Smetana plus extended excerpts from a broadcast of Spontini’s La Vestale in its rarely heard original French version.
Trove Thursday presents a double dose of the Verdi Messa da Requiem performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
This Sony Classical set of live performances covers a golden quarter century in the singing and staging of Wagner. Birgit Nilsson shared it with many other legends, and many of them appear on these discs.
There was a general feeling of homecoming in the hall on Friday evening in anticipation of what promised to be a special return visit on many levels.
Between them, Maria Guleghina, Marcello Giordani, James Morris and John Del Carlo have nearly 150 combined years of service on stage.
The 1965 season was a time of big changes at the Vienna State Opera.
Die Zauberflöte is a perennial favorite with audiences, and modern productions have attracted top singers and production teams. Yet every production struggles with the performance text, particularly with the issues of race and sex. The dreams of the Enlightenment may be lovely, but the social mores of their dreamers have not aged gracefully. Despite a…
Undaunted by Hurricane Hannah, La Cieca continues her presentation of Lohengrin at Unnatural Acts of Opera. Lohengrin: Jess Thomas Elsa: Claire Watson Telramund: Walter Berry Ortrud: Christa Ludwig Koenig Heinrich: Martti Talvela Heerrufer: Eberhard Waechter Vienna State Opera, Karl Boehm, 1965. Lohengrin Act 2
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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