All about my mother
Operatic history can be cruel where multiple works with the same subject are concerned
Richard Strauss
180 pieces since 2006.
180
pieces
21
years
Future imperfect
This year’s treat was Vittorio Gnecchi’s Cassandra, completed around 1905
Bleeding love
I have always wanted to see a production of Strauss’ Elektra that made my ears bleed.
Old school
This week, I offer you a classic rendition of Richard Strauss’ tale of the House of Atreus starring Ursula Schröder-Feinen, Astrid Varnay, Leonie Rysanek, Theo Adam, and Hans Hopf under Karl Böhm’s direction.
Bleak house
The haunted Mycenae of Patrice Chéreau’s enthralling production of Richard Strauss’s Elektra had seized its viewers in an unrelenting vise that never relaxed even at its quietly shattering conclusion.
Sie ist ein Ungeheuer, deine Tochter
The focus in this 1974 performance of Salome from Orange is (mostly) on the Herodes of Jon Vickers.
Say it with music
Capriccio was a great pleasure on Friday night, March 4. This was a co-production of Opera Philadelphia and The Curtis Institute, presented in the intimate Pearlman Theater at the Kimmel Center.
Sweetness and light
This was a Rosenkavalier that aspired to excellence and almost achieved it.
Ihre hochfürstliche Gnaden, die Frau Fürstin Feldmarschall!
God, I love that photo of Lisa della Casa. She can sing, too!
Dancing in the dark
One Saturday afternoon during my freshman year in college, Richard Strauss’s Elektra made me fall in love with Ursula Schröder-Feinen—or maybe vice versa.
Head over heels
I guess you have spoken: “Bring us insane divas in operas we already know!”
Cherubino jumps the shark
Homer, inspired by many a muse, sang not of sequels to his Iliad.
Stage beauty
Since the 1916 version of Ariadne auf Naxos which we all know and love had its premiere at Wiener Staatsoper, it seems most appropriate to bring you this 1967 performance from the same venue, with a legendary cast at its zenith.
From the depths
I was greatly anticipating Karita Mattila’s recital on Friday in Toronto’s Koerner Hall.
Blow a kiss, take a bough
Richard Strauss’s many one-act operas make excellent concert programs, both for their length (usually under two hours) and the primary place each gives the orchestration, a specialty where Strauss’s brilliance seldom deserted him.
That sly come-hither stare
Harry Lawrence Freeman’s Voodoo, begun sometime before 1914, was completed and first heard on radio in May, 1928, then staged on Broadway later that year—seven years before Porgy and Bess, please note.
The blue dream
It will come to no surprise to followers of the direction of Stefan Herheim (or to readers of La Cieca’s gushing fangirl appreciations of his work) that his Stuttgart production of Der Rosenkavalier was as “delightfully busy” as we have come to expect.
Coming out
Christian Thielemann’s spirited, precise conducting and the superb, sumptuous playing of the Staatskapelle Dresden are the finest features of this strongly cast performance of Strauss’s Arabella.
All mysteries
And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith… I am nothing.”
When I have sung my songs
Soprano Renée Fleming is certainly making the role of the Countess in Richard Strauss’s final opera Capriccio the focus of her late-career years.
Bomb scare
The appeal of Ariadne auf Naxos (for me anyway) is the acknowledgment that underneath it all, opera (and all other forms of “high art”) is really show business.
Final chapter
None of my previous Elektra experiences prepared me for this stunning, overwhelming performance from the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence.
Fairy tale
“Conduct Salome and Elektra as if they were by Mendelssohn: Fairy music.” Seriously, how often has that happened?
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).
Win a Free Ticket to Opening Night at the Met!
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