A grandly sung revival of The Ballad of Baby Doe at Central City Opera mines poignance from America’s past and present.
It may be blasphemy to admit—particularly this month—but usually I can either take or leave Donizetti’s serious operas. However, I love the composer in comic mode, so Chris’s Cache runs with that sentiment in offering three recordings of Don Pasquale.
Some operas carry around the shadow of their most famous interpreters more than others.
Despite the diminishing returns of her vocal means, Edita Gruberova‘s last years of her career were if anything more successful than ever.
Off-and-on since last fall my PPP (Personal Pandemic Project) has been assembling a chronology of the American Opera Society. For 19 years beginning in 1951 it presented a remarkable series of concert performances of works unperformed by either the Met or New York City Opera.
In tribute to soprano Christiane Eda-Pierre, who died September 5.
Trove Thursday bids adieu to 2019 with Bizet’s rare La Jolie Fille de Perth with the enchanting Christiane Eda-Pierre as the heroine who survives her madness.
“Trove Thursday” offers a vernal take on Massenet’s magical Cendrillon (in English) featuring two sopranos: Margaret Price—not yet 30—and Anne Pashley, then just 35.
Lakmé, stars Ruth Welting, Alfredo Kraus, and Paul Plishka, conducted by Nicola Rescigno.
A performance of Gluck’s Alceste from Wiener Staatsoper in June 2016.
Jean-Philippe Rameau was nearly 80 when he composed his final masterpiece Les Boréades, but it had to wait over 200 years to reach the stage.
So, I was asking my friends with Met Opera insider connections about the new Hoffmann production directed by Bartlett Sher. Seemingly conceived under an unlucky star, this production first lost two of its four heroines when Anna Netrebko decided not sing Olympia and Giulietta but kept Antonia and also Stella, leaving the dramaturgy somewhat lopsided.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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