A woman reads from the Bible. There is a dance scene in a tavern. The discovery of blood gives away the protagonist.
Between them, Maria Guleghina, Marcello Giordani, James Morris and John Del Carlo have nearly 150 combined years of service on stage.
Angela Gheorghiu‘ s idiosyncratically alluring, sometimes maddening, always fascinating Floria Tosca inevitably became the evening’s unmissable raison d’être.
With help from the Met’s invaluable performance archive, here is a look back at just some of what you could have seen, and perhaps did see, on October 31st through the years at the Met.
On Wednesday, the still-active, still radiant Virginia Zeani turns 90.
If you had told me 20 years ago that at some point in the future I would have over 550 of the Metropolitan Opera’s performances, audio and video, at my command with the touch of a button I would say my eulogy had just been read and I’d been taken to my reward.
LA Opera opened their 30th season with a pairing of two of their most popular productions, both of which were initially staged by filmmakers not unfamiliar with the vagaries of our industry outpost here in Hollywoodland.
Would exciting American dramatic soprano Christine Goerke be the next great ice-princess we have been waiting for?
It took me years to appreciate the serious Donizetti, but I’ve always loved the composer’s comic operas, particularly Don Pasquale and Elisir.
There is a simple elegance to the single-composer recital album format. For the listener in the mood for, say, Puccini, it’s a chance to delve into his music without any pesky interruptions by those other guys like Verdi or Massenet. And if one is also in the mood for a particular singer’s art, then the…
For those of you who can’t make it to the Met’s opening night, I am happy to provide you the opportunity to experience another Otello with a cast that was unmatchable for 1981.
The studio opera recording is a rare beast these days and its arrival always a cause for celebration.
In attempting to get a little bit of everything onto my Mixcloud page, I realized that I inadvertently neglected some essentials: 1) Leyla Gencer 2) La Gioconda.
Geraldine Farrar has gone and the Gerry-flappers are disconsolate.
At the Opernhaus Zürich, the coat check is not optional.
Manon Lescaut was Giacomo Puccini’s first big international success. His publisher, Giulio Ricordi, tried to put him off the project by citing Jules Massenet’s very successful adaptation just nine years previously. Puccini was intent on making the story his own, insisting, “A woman like Manon can have more than one lover… I shall feel it…
At what moment does a “rising star” become simply a “star”?
It seems almost comical to think now but the designer-director Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, who died in 1988, was at one time considered the height of regie-theatre scandal.
Verdi must have gotten tired of tossing and turning by now and has gone back to resting in peace.
Olga Peretyatko has officially left the chorus.
The role debut of a world-class singer is always a time of great anticipation, hopefully to be followed by celebration, if not unbridled jubilation.
The big news out of the Bay this week, of course, is that David Gockley, after ten years at the helm here and over forty in opera, has decided not to pull a Bloomberg/Galupe-Borszkh.
Giacomo Puccini’s horse-opera version of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” La Fanciulla del West, based on David Belasco’s play, The Girl of the Golden West, enjoyed the status of a curate’s egg for quite a while.
“Oh to be young and going to Paris for the first time,” exclaimed an elderly gentleman who donned his best sweatervest for a concert at the Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival this past August.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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