Carthago DiDonato est
For our first review in a new series, we turn to the new recording of Dido and Aeneas featuring Joyce DiDonato, Michael Spyres and Maxim Emelyanychev leading Il Pomo d’Oro.
Michael Spyres
54 pieces since 2010 — in 20 roles, at 10 companies, most often at Metropolitan Opera.
54
pieces
20
roles
10
companies
17
years
By role
Role Aeneas
Role Arnold
Bows and arias
Whenever opera-lovers are canvassed about what neglected operas they hunger to see revived, the resulting lists inevitably feature a goodly number of grand operas, those once wildly popular monstrosities–particularly by Meyerbeer–written primarily for Paris in the mid-19th century.
Do Tell
Trying to suggest erstwhile world-renown of Guillaume Tell to a 23-year-old who had never heard of it, a friend of mine mentioned The Lone Ranger. “What’s The Lone Ranger?” replied the youth. And the sun rises and the sun sets and all things must pass. But surely he knew Bambi Meets Godzilla, which also uses […]
Role Bacchus
She’s no basic britch
Samantha Hankey’s Composer is the standout in the Wiener Staatsoper’s episodically sublime Ariadne auf Naxos revival.
Role Baldassare
Shadows on the silver screen
Strange as it is to encounter two such disparate works presented with the identical production concept, it’s odder still that the opera you’d think would be the slam dunk is anything but.
Conquering Ciro
By the time Rossini was 20, he had produced six operas, most of them brief, comic and slight. He admitted to admiring Mozart (not then well known south of the Alps), but the melodies of his early works show more of the influence of Paisiello.
Role Camille de Rosillion
Where have all the bubbles gone?
As a whole, the evening seemed forced and a bit dispiriting.
Role Edgardo
Dark shadows
Those who want a rethought Lucia to allow the heroine more sense of agency will be especially confounded at Laurent Pelly’s reading.
Role Emperor
Aix tremendae, salva me
Festival d’Aix-en-Provence confronts the living and the dead — and its own future — through audacious productions and an intimate world premiere.
Role Emperor Altoum
Hear the trumpets sound!
Frankly I thought Sondra Radvanovsky had reached her pinnacle with her Norma but I was apparently mistaken. I’m happy to say her Turandot is completely next-level.
Role Faust
Faust class
Michael Spyres as Faust, despite a few flickers of indisposition, was nearly ideal.
Keeper of the flame
Elina Garanca’s glorious Marguerite transformed La Damnation de Faust into the Met’s first essential must-see of the year.
Something cool
Elina Garanca was radiantly present at Carnegie Hall Friday night performing a ravishingly somber Rückert-Lieder with Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the MET Orchestra.
Role Idomeneo
Ocean, thou mighty monster
Michael Spyres’s nobly moving Idomeneo wasn’t just a bravura triumph: singing strongly throughout, he brought more colors to his portrayal of the tortured king than I had experienced from others in the Ponnelle production.
Role Manrico
Basque in the glory
For the opening night of Il Trovatore, Houston Grand Opera’s new production aimed high, bringing together a star-studded cast and a fresh, contemporary take on Verdi’s intense drama.
Role Orombello
Bea in the bonnet
Everyone who revives Bellini’s Beatrice di Tenda, as the Collegiate Chorale did at Carnegie Hall on Wednesday night, calls the piece an “overlooked masterpiece.”
Role Orphée
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
Role Otello
‘Twas pitiful, ’twas wondrous pitiful
I have to confess to a certain bias: I adore Rossini’s music. Barber was the first album I ever bought, and fittingly, the first opera I ever sang. Rossini was an astonishingly prolific composer, writing more than thirty-five operas, as well as numerous secular and sacred choral works, songs, and chamber music.
Role Pollione
Diva moment
Angela Meade, reportedly flown in at the very last minute to take on the role of Norma, absolutely triumphed, pulling out all the stops to deliver a commanding performance that should, indeed, go down in history.
Zero gravitas
On the train ride home I was thinking that I don’t want to see or hear Norma ever again.
Role Raoul de Nangis
The Multiverse of Morley
A Trove Thursday Mega-Post © featuring the wonderful American soprano Erin Morley in Orff’s Carmina Burana and Richard Strauss’s Brentano Lieder, plus extended live excerpts from Handel’s Orlando, Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail, and Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots.
Role Septimus
Guys who sing high (and others)
A stack of noteworthy recent baroque vocal CDs on my desk has been staring at me for weeks, so I’m tackling them on Handel’s birthday before the Met roars back into action beginning this weekend.
Role Siegmund
This is what trauma looks like
Valentin Schwarz‘s and Simone Young‘s Ring, in its final outing at Bayreuth, is dramaturgically messy and musically excellent.
Role Tristan
“Modern convention is the oddity”
Michael Spyres talks to Kevin Ng about his winding path as a baritenor, which composer he wants to conquer next, and how he makes Wagner work in his voice — and in his native Ozarks.
Tunnel vision
Lise Davidsen, Michael Spyres, and Yannick Nézet-Séguin are astonishing in Tristan und Isolde at the Met, while Yuval Sharon‘s new production is anything but.
When her ship comes in
Anticipating the titanic arrival of Lise Davidsen‘s Isolde in New York in March, Parterre Box is thrilled to share a bit of her debut opposite Clay Hilley recorded in Barcelona last week.
Role Walther
Sing of happy, not sad
Matthias Davids‘s reactionary new production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg might be fun, but no one comes to Bayreuth for fun.
Win a Free Ticket to Opening Night at the Met!
Quinn Kelsey and Lise Davidsen star in the Met's new Macbeth. We're giving away one ticket, so screw your courage to the sticking place and enter now!
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).
