Placebo effect
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.
Pretty Yende
26 pieces since 2014 — in 11 roles, at 6 companies, most often at Metropolitan Opera.
26
pieces
11
roles
6
companies
13
years
By role
Role Adina
Role Antonia
Nice piece of Tales
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.
Open and clothes case
From an exposure standpoint, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was the best thing to happen to opera since Beverly Sills.
Role Elvira
Pretty in Puritani
Pretty Yende was still hanging around after her last Barbiere and she knows the role of Elvira, having sung it in Zurich last June.
Role Leïla
‘Perles’ hearing
Alexander Birch Elliott‘ s dynamic if gauche Zurga added some pizzazz to an otherwise bland evening.
Role Lucia
Madness on the moors!
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?
Role Marie
Can you ‘Fille’ the love tonight
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.
Role Mimì
Duet to me one more time
Patrick Mack reviews yet another Puccini album from Jonas Kaufmann
Role Rosina
A little off the top
Beaumarchais clearly delighted in this unobtrusive realm.
Role Semele
Americans in Paris
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.
Role Susanna
Fireworks
As I leaned forward the woman in front of me turned to her seatmate and very quietly, in a voice thick with emotion and not a few tears, said, “it’s so beautiful.”
Role Violetta
Color my world
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.”
Win a Free Ticket to Opening Night at the Met!
Quinn Kelsey and Lise Davidsen star in the Met's new Macbeth. We're giving away one ticket, so screw your courage to the sticking place and enter now!
I’ll take the fall
The days are getting shorter, but you can keep the prattle going this fall’s Talk of the Town! You will, you can, you must join in the discussion about: Great mezzo soprano performances (October),
Gained in translation (November), Teleport me back to… (December).
