Ahead of the return of Louise to the Opéra National de Lyon, Parterre Box features Elsa Dreisig in a much more famous French opera.
It may be blasphemy to admit—particularly this month—but usually I can either take or leave Donizetti’s serious operas. However, I love the composer in comic mode, so Chris’s Cache runs with that sentiment in offering three recordings of Don Pasquale.
Even if our monolingual American tourists can be the source of vexation for many a Parisian, our singers gave much for the city’s operagoers to admire this month in stylish productions of Semele at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and I Puritani at the Opéra Bastille.
Patrick Mack reviews yet another Puccini album from Jonas Kaufmann
Lisette Oropesa, a product of the Metropolitan Opera Lindemann Young Artist Program, has not been seen much on the stage of the Met in recent seasons.
Les Contes d’Hoffmann is something of a puzzle in which some of the pieces are missing and others been altered to fit since Offenbach died before he could complete and revise the work.
Oh, La traviata, how do I love thee? Let me count the recordings.
Angel Blue‘s refulgent, lush soprano blooms as Violetta’s vocal lines broaden and soar.
Perhaps the quirkiest of Mahler’s nine symphonies, the Fourth fits nicely with Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s somewhat idiosyncratic style.
San Francisco Opera has unveiled a brand-new production of Giuseppe Verdi’s warhorse classic La traviata, the first “to be built in San Francisco Opera’s scene and costume shops in 35 years.”
From an exposure standpoint, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was the best thing to happen to opera since Beverly Sills.
Happy New Year, dear readers, from me, Callum, and Christine Goerke’s headband-tiara!
I need to get something off my chest. I love bel canto.
La Fille du Régiment, Donizetti’s half-spoken ode to La France about a girl raised by a division of daddies, is at once infamous and beloved for the string of nine high C’s capping act one.
Alexander Birch Elliott‘ s dynamic if gauche Zurga added some pizzazz to an otherwise bland evening.
At “Trove Thursday” it’s May Night, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s 1880 comic opera, in a recent broadcast from Moscow led by pianist-conductor Mikhail Pletnev.
The new cast at the Met suggested an alliterative retitling of Lucia di Lammermoor was needed—perhaps Lost Loonies in Love or its Italian equivalent?
April brought I Puritani to Palermo’s centerpiece Teatro Massimo.
A Met HD cinema broadcast of Puccini’s Tosca on Saturday, 27 January, concluded the first run of a production marked by upheaval in the ten months between its announcement and its New Year’s Eve premiere.
Good singing and a dramatically potent (if conservative) production were an unbeatable combination in the Metropolitan Opera’s season premiere of Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore.
A poster outside Carnegie Hall proclaimed “Mahler Well Met” and to some degree it proved to be true.
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.
Pretty Yende was still hanging around after her last Barbiere and she knows the role of Elvira, having sung it in Zurich last June.
Beaumarchais clearly delighted in this unobtrusive realm.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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