Whether an opera by Puccini, Verdi, Wagner, Strauss, or Berg, Dimitri Mitropoulos brought to the podium a total understanding and love for each score he touched.
Video Artists International brings us back to a time when opera was carried over the airwaves by great voices—and a tire company.
This is one of those rare performances that makes you believe that everything Verdi was greater Way Back When.
To celebrate the 100th anniversary performances of Turandot at the Met starting next week, Patrick Dillon gives a listen to seven versions of “Signore, ascolta!” for Perspectives on an Aria.
Diana Soviero chats with Roger Pines about six decades of performing, four decades of teaching, and how she’s handing the tradition off to the next generation.
When I first listened years ago as a baby opera queen to Tebaldi‘s 1971 “Christmas Festival,” I could not get over just how enfeebled she sounded.
Are today’s stars enough to sustain Andrea Chénier?
Suck it, Joseph Kerman: Puccini’s “Shabby Little Shocker” has outlived you and will probably bury us all.
It’s Norma, darling. We know.
It’s like making love with someone whose rap never ceases—and includes “helpful suggestions” about how you can be improving your game.
In a satanic panic, this week Chris’s Cache presents trio of performances of Mefistofele
As this is “Donizetti Month” here on parterre box, Chris’s Cache offers the recently deceased Paul Plishka and Opera Orchestra of New York with Carol Vaness in Anna Bolena and with Mariella Devia in the rarely heard Adelia.
It used to be proverbial on the Met Opera Quiz, usually quoted by quiz master Edward Downes: “If you can’t remember where a certain plot event occurs … it happens in La Gioconda.”
In a splashy new recording of Norma, Marina Rebeka “is doing something very untoward, and it appears destructive to her voice.” It has Niel Rishoi worried.
As for complete recordings of Il trovatore, which was discussed at some length last week, there are at least 200 of them, both studio and live.
Patrick Mack on the iconic Ethan Mordden‘s career and his first book on opera in 30 years – and it appears that time has mostly stopped in the Mordden manse.
There were, of course, other Chénier recordings beyond the truly great ones…
Quite simply, the singers are not around today who are steeped in the tradition of verismo, or for that matter the later part of the 19th century.
Doing my research for these “thoughts” ahead of a starry revival in London that opened yesterday, I came across the following review for the Opening Night of the 1962-63 Season.
In the lead up to LA Opera’s mounting of Turandot on May 18th (hooray!) I thought I’d touch on some of my favorite recordings and new re-masters I’ve discovered. I have them all.
Yes, there were other Giocondas if not of quite the same distinction. Chronologically…
Maria Callas’s official debut in opera was as La Gioconda in 1947 at the arena in Verona.
It’s time to discuss Zinka Milanov.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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