Plummeting in love
The Met’s current production of Verdi’s La Traviata is something of a mixed bag.
Michael Fabiano
71 pieces since 2009 — in 18 roles, at 11 companies, most often at Metropolitan Opera.
71
pieces
18
roles
11
companies
18
years
By role
Role Alfredo
Role Calaf
The replacements
Second casts in Don Giovanni and Turandot at the Metropolitan Opera offer mixed blessings.
Reunited and it feels so good
When Angela Meade and Michael Fabiano first sang Lucia together as students at AVA few would have predicted that they would go on to sing Turandot 16 years later.
Role Carlo
Four faints in five acts
That little place just two hours from the city is on the list of things I shall never understand, like the plot of Parsifal.
Role Cavaradossi
Take the long way Rome
David McVicar’s 2017 production of Tosca returned to the Met on Tuesday night, with an able and watchable, if not transcendent cast.
On the edge of my seat
The San Francisco Opera became the first US opera company to present a full-blown production indoors on its home turf this season when they ushered the US opera audience into 2021-22 Season on Saturday September 21 with a stellar performance of Giacomo Puccini’s perennial favorite Tosca.
Charisma and chemistry
For this revival of Tosca Teatro Real has configured several casts with some of the best singers in the world: Sondra Radvanovsky, Maria Agresta, Anna Netrebko, Joseph Calleja, Michael Fabiano, Yusif Eyvazov, Jonas Kaufmann, Carlos Álvarez, Gevorg Hakobyan and Luca Salsi.
Role Chevalier de Grieux
The pleasure of her company
It is not easy for an opera company to follow a spectacular production of La Traviata with Massenet’s Manon.
Role Corrado
Il corsaro
Michael Fabiano in one of his specialties as the dashing hero of Il corsaro torn between Tamara Wilson and Nicole Cabell.
Lone, wild, and strange
Trove Thursday presents Michael Fabiano in one of his specialties as the dashing hero of Il Corsaro torn between Tamara Wilson and Nicole Cabell.
The year in Corwin
New York City isn’t a bad place to live, operatically-speaking.
Role Don José
On the road again
When it premiered at the Opéra Comique in 1875, Carmen shocked audiences with its frank depictions of female sexuality, the proletariat, and violence: subjects that have ensured the piece’s continued relevance and that have inspired numerous retellings and revisions.
Room temperature
It’s maybe not a surprise that Carmen is neither a good vocal nor temperamental fit for Isabel Leonard.
Tenors gone wild
Among several fine productions at Aix this summer, Dmitri Tcherniakov’s brilliantly conceived and executed Carmen proved a game changer.
Role Edgardo
Madness on the moors!
The new cast at the Met suggested an alliterative retitling of Lucia di Lammermoor was needed—perhaps Lost Loonies in Love or its Italian equivalent?
Role Faust
Back to the future
After putting a hiatus on their awards in 2020 and 2021 (for reasons that are all too well-known to all of us), the Richard Tucker Foundation Gala returned on Sunday evening November 13 honoring soprano Angel Blue the 2022 Award winner.
The devil’s eye candy
There are shows with iconic characters, and there are shows with iconic characters playing iconic characters.
Role Gennaro
Pick your poison
I think we’re all aware by now of the wicked libel that the French dramatist Victor Hugo concocted about the fair Lucrezia Borgia with his depiction of her as a murderous virago.
Role Gustavus
It’s going to be a lovely party
Overall, this was a superb achievement and a thrilling season opener for the San Francisco Opera.
Role Jean
All about my mother
Operatic history can be cruel where multiple works with the same subject are concerned
Role Manrico
An afternoon at the opera
Il trovatore may be famous for its melodramatic plot and unlikely mistaken identities, but surely even Verdi and Cammarano couldn’t have imagined the chaos of a performance featuring two Manricos and two Leonoras.
Tucker and roll
The Richard Tucker Foundation Gala has always been a big annual celebration of the voice with an emphasis on big-voiced singers in big repertoire (not much Wagner usually, though…). Like so many reliable operatic institutions it has struggled for survival after the pandemic.
Five of a kind
Rare is the revival of Il trovatore that boasts five first-rate singers, and such an occasion should be treasured. And so, at the Met last Saturday, it was.
Role Mario Cavaradossi
Better off dead
I have a horrible confession. I’ve always judged the quality of an opera largely on the number of dead characters at the finale.
Role Oronte
Double cross
“Trove Thursday” offers due local Lombardi: one with Renata Scotto and José Carreras, the other with Aprile Millo and Carlo Bergonzi.
Role Pinkerton
Looking for Trouble
The ailing and grief-stricken Pinkerton was shown to give his son a diary about his time in Nagasaki, and as Trouble read it, he (and the audience) was taken back in time as the story came to life, similar to the use of Pensieve in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Book 4).
Role Poliuto
You can’t hide your lion eyes
The UK’s first-ever production of Poliuto, now available from Opus Arte on DVD, set the lions of Rome among the lambs of Glyndebourne.
Role Rodolfo
Best in snow
Lyric Opera of Chicago resumed its season on Wednesday evening with the new-to-Chicago production of Puccini’s perennial audience pleaser La bohème.
E lucevan le stelle
The Stars of Lyric Opera weren’t under the stars last night, prevented by a persistent cloud bank, but they nonetheless provided a stirring evening of music in Chicago’s Millennium Park.
Technical difficulties
La bohéme returned to the stage of the Metropolitan Opera once again last night (does it ever leave?)
You give me fever
Mortality is ugly—it smells, it makes uncomfortable noises, it takes its time; and then there is the overwhelming sense of dread and helplessness.
I shall marry the Miller’s daughter
I grew up with the Anna Moffo recording of Luisa Miller, so it was fortuitous that the Met gave the premiere of a new production in 1968, around the time RCA released the album.
Veiled threat
Angela Gheorghiu‘ s idiosyncratically alluring, sometimes maddening, always fascinating Floria Tosca inevitably became the evening’s unmissable raison d’être.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one
Gala this; gala that; who knew rich people wore clothes so badly?
The year in Greg
I would love to contribute a top ten list but I didn’t even go to ten things this year.
Moon and stars
One of the major complaints about the five year casting system (as well as the shared productions by different companies) is that operatic events are rarely surprises anymore.
La vie de broham
Imagine the good fortune of attending La Bohème with someone who’s never seen it!
I’ll take the fall
The days are getting shorter, but you can keep the prattle going this fall’s Talk of the Town! You will, you can, you must join in the discussion about: Great mezzo soprano performances (October),
Gained in translation (November), Teleport me back to… (December).
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