The superb 1958 Bayreuth Lohengrin, under the wonderful Cluytens.
I can’t imagine anything more anxiety-inducing than being put in at last-minute to sing a role in a high-profile production at the Met.
Anticipating Leontyne Price’s 96th birthday on February 10, Chris’s Cache presents the American diva in an epic collection of live performances.
On this day in 1966 the Metropolitan Opera presented a new production of Elektra.
On this day in 1964 the Metropolitan Opera opened its season with a new production of Lucia di Lammermoor.
For this, the 250th edition of Trove Thursday, [hold for applause] a broadcast of a memorable evening at Carnegie Hall—and I was there: Smetana’s stirring Libuse, the Czech national opera, with a transcendent Gabriela Benackova as its titular prophetess.
With most of us dug in for the duration, there’s no better time to tuck into a CD box set of neglected treasures. Not that I needed an excuse, mind you.
Ali Baba ou Les Quarantes Voleurs continues straight-tone September with Teresa Stich-Randall as its heroine while Alfredo Kraus scales the heights with another Nadir.
The principal cast members for the week’s Aida are all Wagnerians: Birgit Nilsson, Sándor Kónya, Rita Gorr and Cornell MacNeil.
Fidelio but with an unhappy ending, Bedrich Smetana’s stirring Dalibor opens 2016’s “Trove Thursday” in a 1968 German-language broadcast from Bavarian Radio.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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