Hit me with your best shot
Dmitri Tcherniakov‘s production of Der Freischütz in Munich may fire a few blanks, but the musicians are all on target.
Philippe Jordan
20 pieces since 2011 — at 7 companies, most often at Opéra national de Paris.
20
pieces
7
companies
16
years
C’est une vraie voix
Don Carlos returns to the Opéra National de Paris and it’s an unusually happy occasion
Du weisst, wo du mich wiederfinden kannst!
And what a luxury it is to experience this musically outstanding Parsifal with a cast of this caliber!
Someday she’ll come along, the girl I love
In Richard Strauss’s Arabella, the heroine is consumed with finding the right man—der Richtige—but who is the right Arabella?
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.
Everyone’s gone to the moon
The Met’s recent Ariadne auf Naxos and Elektra combo left me wanting more and more Richard Strauss, so Trove Thursday offers a complete Capriccio with Jonas Kaufmann (his one-and-only Flamand) and Christopher Maltman vying for Soile Isokoski.
Cradle song
While seasonally-awkward streams of Messiah abound, Trove Thursday turns instead to Berlioz’s exquisite L’Enfance du Christ from francophone forces including Stéphanie d’ Oustrac, Bernard Richter, Edwin Crossley-Mercer and Nicolas Testé (for once, sans sa femme).
Something With a ‘Ring’ to It
Cycle II represented an embarrassment of musical riches.
Oh my goddess!
Die Walküre crystallizes the cycle’s questions, ideas, and stakes.
Domino theory
The Metropolitan Opera delivers on the promise of Wagner’s Gesamtkunswerk in a revival of Robert Lepage’s Ring.
Once more with feeling
We humans tend to dislike uncertainty, therefore there is something comforting going to opera revivals; you know exactly what you are going to get.
This means war
Considering the size and the logistics for staging Les Troyens, every new production of Berlioz’s epic masterpiece is a special event.
Overview: Riccardo Chailly
Riccardo Chailly’s appointment as La Scala’s new music director was news that I greeted with enthusiasm when first announced in 2013.
Catch me if you cantata
J.S. Bach doesn’t get a lot of attention on this site although he wrote tons of vocal music.
Iris, hence away
Endlessly extricating her from existing contracts then negotiating new ones must make being Sonya Yoncheva’s manager the hardest job in the music business.
Salvation for the savior
Kaufmann conveys Lohengrin’s immense loneliness in a profoundly moving way. I am happy to report that vocally he sounds completely recovered.
Sigh no more
Trove Thursday” presents Béatrice et Bénédict in a 2009 performance featuring Joyce DiDonato and Charles Workman and conducted by Sir Colin Davis.
“What gets me…!”
What gets me, La Cieca snaps, is not so much that Levine bit off more than he could chew, because that’s old news.
Ottoman and woman
“With radiant looks, we shall depart this world,” sing Konstanze and Belmonte near the end of Mozart’s exotic yet charming opera Singspiel Die Entführung aus dem Serail.
Fresh, direct
Directors love directing Wagner, or rather, they love directing their versions of Wagner. They don’t seem to like the operas very much. We all know what we’re going to see if we travel to Bayreuth or Berlin or Stuttgart for an evening: the regietheater world of concept grafted over concept grafted over concept with the […]