As a diehard completist I felt guilty as the Met’s scattered, campy revival of Semiramide lumbered toward its abrupt conclusion after nearly four hours.
In observance of Edita’s Gruberova’s 50th anniversary in opera, I would like to offer a series of commentaries, over successive days, of my favorite performances.
“Trove Valentine’s Day” further stokes Semiramis-fever with another of the celebrated works about the infamous queen: La Semiramide riconosciuta, a superb 1729 opera by Nicola Porpora.
Semiramide produced at Carnegie Hall by Matthew Epstein in 1983 with June Anderson, Marilyn Horne, Samuel Ramey and Douglas Ahlstedt with Henry Lewis conducting.
The Eloquence label of Australia, the down under-arm of Decca and now by extension Deutsche Grammophon, seems to specialize in the re-release of “Auld Lang Syne” treats.
I first went bonkers for Bellini’s masterpiece during the previous century when the Met remounted it for Joan Sutherland.
“Trove Thursday” presents a live Motezuma conducted by Alan Curtis with Karina Gauvin, Sonia Prina, Mary-Ellen Nesi, Vito Priante and Ann Hallenberg (as Hernán Cortés!).
Jacques Offenbach’s Les contes d’Hoffmann has had a bumpy ride to its pride of position in the current French repertoire.
Let’s call this meeting to order. My name is Patrick and I’m a boxset-aholic.
The wonderful Spanish mezzo Teresa Berganza celebrates her 81st birthday next week and “Trove Thursday” gets the party started.
Gather around while I play Ghost of New Year’s Eve past!
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.
Few things in opera are more exciting than a beloved young singer taking on a new role, especially in a new Fach.
After listening to “Stella di Napoli,” her mightily impressive new CD
of rare bel canto arias just released by Erato, I felt many of the old sparks reigniting.
With much laying-on of fanfares and gift boxes our friends at Decca Classics have unleashed Luciano Pavarotti Edition 1: The First Decade on a weary and satiated public.
Again dipping into the rich archive of live recordings remastered and made available by the late Mike Richter, we find this selection from his early disc “Odd Opera 2.”
C-Major continues their full frontal attack on the Verdi catalogue with this release of I Masnadieri which, I’m thrilled to report, does not hail from the Teatro di Regio in Parma like the previous aspirants. We’ve travelled south to Naples and the Teatro di San Carlo and we’re all the better for it as the…
Sometime in 1753, Frederick The Great of Prussia, following a tiff with his great friend Voltaire, began writing an opera libretto in French prose that was to elucidate his ideas about the role of an enlightened monarch.
La Cieca has just received a complete report from her spy at today’s open dress rehearsal of La traviata at the Met.
I’ve been a big fan of Donizetti’s Anna Bolena since I first heard it on recording and have always felt that it deserved a definitive recorded performance. Here’s a brief tour of why this hasn’t happened. There’s the Bible, also known as the live Scala relay with Callas and Simionato and musical cuts so egregious…
“Hey the line forms, on the right dear / Now that Macheath’s back in town / You’d better lock your doors, and call the law / Because Macheath’s back in town.” So concludes Marc Blitzstein’s famous English translation of the song that opens Die Dreigroschenoper.
I used to think that recital albums, greatest hits albums, and concert albums were just products of a singer’s vanity—or conductor—and that they terribly lacked imagination or preparation or dramatic heft. “Greatest Hits” albums frequently suffer from this affliction, as it is, more often than not, just a mish-mash of what this soprano or that…
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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