From the HIP From the HIP

We are in the midst of a titanic Beethoven onslaught prompted by the unstoppable need to commemorate the composer’s upcoming 250th birthday.

Welcome to all the pleasures Welcome to all the pleasures

“Trove Thursday” marks St. Cecilia’s Day with two works by Henry Purcell, the composer who often celebrated music’s patron saint.

One Handel, one heart One Handel, one heart

I don’t usually attend a performance of an opera I’ve known well most of my life expecting a revelation.

Miss Mannered

Joyce DiDonato enjoys the rare cachet of having three studio-recorded operas released in the past three years while other famous divas must be content with “just” DVDs. Although two of Renée Fleming’s Violettas have found their way onto video in less than five years (why??), “the people’s diva” has only recorded one studio opera in…

How jolly was my jenkin

I own almost every recording of the 13 operettas Sir Arthur Sullivan wrote with W.S. Gilbert ever made. Twelve Mikados, 14 Pirates of Penzance, 10 Iolanthes, right on down the line to the rarely heard Utopia, Ltd. I was a G&S fan long before I got into opera; when I was a teenager, their operettas…