Maria Callas’s most outstanding Adalgisa, out of all she partnered with, was Fiorenza Cossotto.
Plácido Domingo’s conducting reduced the score’s urgency to the lethargy of a jellyfish.
Celebrating Lenny’s 100th this year has made Candide ubiquitous at opera houses worldwide.
It’s fortunate that the Met’s production of Luisa Miller featured the incomparable Piotr Beczala in the role of Rodolfo.
My mother leaned in and quietly whispered,”Is that Leontyne Price?” to which I replied,”Shhhh!”
In the midst of Tosca month “Trove Thursday” assembles from the 60s to the 80s an Il Trittico in which each opera features an important Italian star.
Last week, a pair of terrific recitals demonstrated what kind of intimate spell a dramatic singer can cast when left alone with a piano.
C-major has made available the first DVD/Blu-ray of Franco Faccio’s Amleto.
What if you could time travel back to the first run of Giuseppe Verdi’s first great success Nabucco?
The second DVD/Blu-ray with Plácido Domingo as Verdi’s other beleaguered Doge, Francesco in I due Foscari.
Another five-Thursday month invites “Trove Thursday” to offer a combo of shorter works.
In Andrea Chenier an unexpected Canadian star-tenor relishes beheading alongside a far less well-known Italian diva: Jon Vickers and Ilva Ligabue.
The tendency to rank—to create subjective lists of best or greatest, or to organize things in ascending or descending order—is a human compulsion.
“Trove Thursday” offers a belated 55th birthday nod to Dmitri Hvorostovsky with a blazing live performance of Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Tsar’s Bride.
Georges Bizet’s Les pêcheurs de perles has been knocking steadily at the door of the standard repertoire now in this country for quite some time.
No amount of scholarly diligence has kept Les contes d’Hoffmann from being the messiest of all standard-repertory messes.
Endlessly extricating her from existing contracts then negotiating new ones must make being Sonya Yoncheva’s manager the hardest job in the music business.
In March 1973, OONY’s second season featured Francesca da Rimini starring Raina Kabaivanska, Plácido Domingo and Matteo Manuguerra.
The glorious and beloved Elisabeth Söderström tackles the fiendishly difficult role of Christine in a 1974 performance from Glyndebourne.
Anticipation of events like the Metropolitan Opera’s 50th Anniversary bash turns me back into the newly opera-soused kid who begged his parents to let him watch the highlights of the Bing Gala on the family color television.
Saturday night the Los Angeles Opera threw itself a party.
Massenet’s La Navarraise in a live performance featuring Rita Gorr as Anita and George Shirley as Araquil.
Jacques Offenbach’s Les contes d’Hoffmann has had a bumpy ride to its pride of position in the current French repertoire.
Opening night of La Scala in 1962 with Franco Corelli, Antonietta Stella, Fiorenza Cossotto, Ettore Bastianini, and Ivo Vinco.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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