Thoughts on La Gioconda: the others
Yes, there were other Giocondas if not of quite the same distinction. Chronologically…
Samuel Ramey
79 pieces since 2006 — in 24 roles, at 8 companies, most often at Metropolitan Opera.
79
pieces
24
roles
8
companies
21
years
By role
Role Alvise
Role Argante
Decidedly un-HIP
Chris’s Cache celebrates Ewa Podles‘s long connection with Handel by featuring her in three complete, decidedly un-HIP operas spanning over twenty years
Il core vi dono
With February 14th falling on a Sunday, there will be no Valentine’s Day Met performance this year.
Role Assur
Semiramide
Produced at Carnegie Hall by Matthew Epstein in 1983 with June Anderson, Marilyn Horne, Samuel Ramey and Douglas Ahlstedt with Henry Lewis conducting.
Gilt trip
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.
Horne in the morning and June at night
Semiramide produced at Carnegie Hall by Matthew Epstein in 1983 with June Anderson, Marilyn Horne, Samuel Ramey and Douglas Ahlstedt with Henry Lewis conducting.
Role bass
Wild bird
On this day in 2017, Clémentine Margaine made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Carmen.
Role Bishop
What not to wear
The Met’s premiere production of Verdi’s Attila is terrible. Are you surprised? Attila is like a self-conscious stroll down Rodeo Drive – or even worse, to the Mall of America – reducing an opera about ruthless tyranny brought down by ruthless vengeance to a quaint and insipid fashion show.
Role Claudius
Sweet prince
South African Jacques Imbrailo’s high-lying baritone did much to highlight the lyrical possibilities of the title role of Hamlet, originally conceived for a tenor.
Role Don Giovanni
Donna Anna and the Dynamos
The new Opera News section of OPERA magazine already seems to be getting smaller, but the March issue features a long interview with Carol Vaness about Donna Anna.
Role Figaro
Maria Ewing sings Mozart
Today is Mozart’s 266th birthday and I had already planned a Trove Thursday celebration when I learned that Maria Ewing had died on January 9.
Role four villains
Gianna Rolandi 1952-2021
American soprano Gianna Rolandi died Sunday morning, according to a number of her friends and colleagues. She was 68.
Role Goffredo
Home brew
An extraordinarily rich variety of opera happens locally, under the umbrella of New York Opera Fest.
Role Le Père
The last time I saw Paris
Trove Thursday goes mini-epic with Gustave Charpentier’s naturalistic slice-of-life of fin-de-siêcle Paris in a rare 1999 Renée Fleming performance of Louise co-starring Jerry Hadley, Samuel Ramey and Felicity Palmer.
Role Le Philosophe
French kiss
To celebrate Valerie Masterson‘s turning 85 tomorrow, Trove Thursday offers a second annual birthday salute to the English soprano.
Role Leone
Dry cleaning
First things first: how are the clothes? Well, there’s enough leather to fill The Eagle ten times over, and there’s definitely fodder for intermission conversation: an adorable tweedy, puffy coat for Uldino; the pimped-out spiky bike helmet with the L.E.D. lights for Attila; all the L.E.D. lights in fact, like the ones that outline Ezio’s […]
Role Lord Sidney
A favorite bass performance from Peter Russell
Nobody in my experience has come close to rivaling Samuel Ramey as the shy, lovelorn Englishman Lord Sidney from that first cast.
Role Mefistofele
Faust or famine
In a satanic panic, this week Chris’s Cache presents trio of performances of Mefistofele
Faust of fury
“Trove Thursday” keeps the evil deeds going this All Saints’s Day with a vintage La Scala broadcast of Arrigo Boito’s only completed opera Mefistofele.
Wagner, where you least expect it
“Trove Thursday” offers a Der Fliegende Holländer from New York City Opera featuring the underrated American soprano Johanna Meier.
Everytime we say goodbye
Gather around while I play Ghost of New Year’s Eve past!
The devil is in the details
Certain operas are better in theory than practice.
Role Mephistopheles
Kaleidoscopic maestro
Saturday marks the centenary of Julius Rudel’s birth which Trove Thursday celebrates with Le Coq d’or, Faust and Ariodante, a triple-bill showcasing his impressive versatility, featuring Beverly Sills and Norman Treigle, two of the most important artists he nurtured during his leadership of the New York City Opera.
garden, mary!
La Cieca muses at some length on the audience’s relationship with the audience, but then Diana Soviero demonstrates the point in only a few seconds of singing in the third act of Faust. (Neil Shicoff and Samuel Ramey aren’t exactly slouching either in this 1986 performance.) Faust (Gounod) Act 3
Role Nick Shadow
Rake, no progress
James Levine: Celebrating 40 Years at the Met includes not only unreleased video performances on DVD but also live radio broadcasts on CD. This performance is one of the latter, originally heard April 19, 2003. The Rake’s Progress has one of the greatest operatic pedigrees of all time. It was inspired by a series of […]
Role Pimen
Super tsar
Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov must be Russian’s most iconic opera and “Trove Thursday” presents it with Claudio Abbado leading an impressive team.
Role Rambaldo
Dance the night away
On this day in 2008 the Metropolitan Opera presented a gala new production of Puccini’s La rondine.
Role Rinaldo
All about that bass-baritone
In Bellini’s opera Norma, the “padre” role of Oroveso, it may be safely said, is “undistinguished”—dull and conventional. The bass entrusted with the role usually will engender two reactions: more frequently than not, “Cut this boring music,” and rather more rarely: “What a pity Oroveso doesn’t have more music.”
Role Rochefort
Head of state
To celebrate the 86th anniversary of her birth (25 May 1929), I bring to a close Beverly Sills’ traversal of the Donizetti “Tudor Queens” with this live Anna Bolena from 1973.
Role Shadow
I’m still thinking about John Cox’s The Rake’s Progress
I came to The Rake’s Progress with a huge “Show Me” chip on my shoulder.
By Peter Russell
Comment
Role The villains
All dolled up
When my editor suggested to me a round-up of my favorite recordings of Jacques Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann I was très, très, intrigued.
Role Timur
Moving targets
In what may qualify as the most unholy alliance of Peter Gelb‘s tenure at the Met so far, since February the “Live in HD” performances from 2009 of both Turandot and Aida issued by Decca have been available from… Target. Only Target. They are scheduled for international release this July. Up until recently there has […]