Confused dramaturgy dampens an otherwise sparkling night of singing in Opera Baltimore’s Lucrezia Borgia.
After an uneven gala performance of Tosca on Tuesday, I’m not sure what the Met means by “celebrating Puccini.”
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.
When asked to express some “thoughts” here about Verdi’s Il trovatore, my immediate thought was “hmm… not a lot to think about there.”
It’s time to discuss Zinka Milanov.
Amilcare Ponchielli’s La Gioconda might not be a perfect opera (though I don’t see why not) but it is one of my favorites…
As said at the beginning, I implied I’d rather see Don Carlo(s) and listen to Forza.
To get right to the point, the performance did not come together despite some good elements and was a major missed opportunity.
Old opera productions at the end of their performing life can be sad affairs.
Angel Blue‘s refulgent, lush soprano blooms as Violetta’s vocal lines broaden and soar.
The revival of Don Carlo(s) which opened on November 3 restored the translated Italian text and the cut 1882 four-act revision not seen at the Met since Rudolf Bing’s last season in 1972.
On this day in 1926 the Metropolitan Opera opened its season with La vestale with Rosa Ponselle in the title role.
Trove Thursday offers a nearly forgotten 19th century opera with a most marvelous name: Le Roi d’Ys by Éduoard Lalo featuring a superb French cast led by Alain Vanzo, Andrea Guiot, Jane Rhodes and Robert Massard.
Trove Thursday offers two very different live recordings of Halévy’s grand opera La Juive.
Use bodily force and get your friends to one of the next five performances of the Met’s new production of Adriana Lecouvreur. It is everything!
Next, I asked Marko Mimica which basses he prefers to listen to on recordings.
Maria Callas’s most outstanding Adalgisa, out of all she partnered with, was Fiorenza Cossotto.
Edita Gruberova takes on the requirements of the title role in Bellini’s Norma.
Usually the longer I know a work the more I look forward to rediscovering it, but that’s just not the case with the Verdi Requiem.
Arabella with Wolfgang Sawallisch conducting a prime-time 1980s Munich cast.
The principal cast members for the week’s Aida are all Wagnerians: Birgit Nilsson, Sándor Kónya, Rita Gorr and Cornell MacNeil.
With Christmas Eve 2016 falling on a Saturday, the Met offers contrasting orchestral splendors at noon and 6 p.m.
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.
Several prima donnas have ought to resurrect La Vestale, including Renata Scotto, whose priestess highlights this week’s “Trove Thursday.”
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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