Lucia di Lammermoor at La Scala, starring Rosa Feola, proves as airless as this summer’s heatwaves.
It’s Norma, darling. We know.
Jessica Pratt’s last-minute Norma in Milan might well be the stuff of legend
Performances of Pittori fiamminghi and Madama Butterfly in picturesque Castell’Arquato were a fine way to honor Luigi Illica, the city’s native son
The whole performance was reminiscent of long-forgotten ways of doing opera (ways which still find the full approval of an Italian public tired of proposals that are all too “experimental”)
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.
Sondra Radvanovsky has an unconventional voice that is suited to unconventional characters and is best used in rangy, difficult music. The lack of lush beauty was no deficit in depicting Medea’s jealousy and vengeful rage.
Only time can tell if some performances enter the collective opera memory, if such a thing even exists, as “historical”
Trove Thursday offers Bellini’s La Sonnambula with Anna Moffo (San Francisco 1960) and Anna Netrebko (Vienna 2006).
This new production of the 1847 original version of Verdi’s first stab at Shakespeare features the extraordinary performances of Luca Salsi and Anna Pirozzi as the Thane of Cawdor and his merry wife.
“Semiramide—a better opera than this dude expected!”
Renée Fleming makes her belated “Trove Thursday” debut as Sandrina in a rare early performance of Mozart’s La Finta Giardiniera.
Trove Thursday presents as compensation Verdi’s Jérusalem with Cecilia Gasdia, Veriano Luchetti and Silvano Carroli conducted by Donato Renzetti.
Heaven temporarily relocated to the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées Sunday evening for a concert performance of Rossini’s revered but rarely heard Semiramide.
That’s the exact word I’d use to describe Olga Peretyatko’s debut in I Puritani last night at the Metropolitan Opera: “calm.”
The hostile reaction to the Mary Zimmerman production of La sonnambula was well documented after the premiere in 2009.
For better or worse, Decca’s new Norma recording
will ultimately be embraced—or dismissed—by those reacting directly to Cecilia Bartoli’s controversial portrayal.
In spite of sounding like an indelicate football injury, I Lombardi alla prima crociata was only Giuseppe Verdi’s fourth opera.
Three of the Met’s most cunning vocalists, Juan Diego Flórez, Joyce DiDonato and Diana Damrau, wrap their tongues around the trio from Le Comte Ory.
Let me take you back, Parterreians, to the spring of 2009. Shortly before the Met’s new La sonnambula opened, murmurings began to be heard, rumors began to circulate. After the open dress rehearsal, reports were filed as opera fans looked on in horror. At the première, a shell-shocked audience rained down boos on the production…
It took the Metropolitan Opera decades to catch up with the rest of the world and finally stage La Cenerentola. Gioachino Rossini’s opera buffa, one of his most beloved and accomplished works, received its belated Met debut in 1997, amidst legitimate suspicions that the new production was less a genuine desire to add a belcanto…
[Our Own Gualtier Malde (along with a few thousand other people) attended the public dress rehearsal of the Met’s new production of La sonnambula this morning. Here is his report.] Innocence, rustic naiveté and virginity just don’t get no respect no more. I should know, I grew up way out in central New Jersey and…
Peter Gelb‘s new broom continues to sweep at the Met. Perhaps to make room for the Gheorghiu/Netrebko/Damrau generation, the incoming General Manager is buying out contracts. Two Met artists in particular are targeted, and, oddly enough, these two ladies have quite a bit in common. Both are 40-something light lyric sopranos, and they have three…
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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