Masques et bergamasques
John Yohalem wraps up Donizetti Month at parterre box with a look back at nearly six decades of Donizetti operagoing.
Saverio Mercadante
20 pieces since 2008.
20
pieces
19
years
The Met should revive La Gioconda
It used to be proverbial on the Met Opera Quiz, usually quoted by quiz master Edward Downes: “If you can’t remember where a certain plot event occurs … it happens in La Gioconda.”
By John Yohalem
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Found in mint condition
Only by knowing what went on around the great composers is it possible to truly understand why they are great and why their operas have come down to us (and why dozens of other titles have been left behind).
Fancy pants
A recent discussion here about Gianna Rolandi prompts Trove Thursday to present the American soprano in a rare trouser role in an even rarer opera, Cimarosa’s Gli Orazi e I Curiazi paired with Anna Caterina Antonacci.
A dark horse in every closet
Mozart and Donizetti could humanize characters in a farce—Mercadante in I due FIgaro cannot get a handle on them.
Bloody Mary, Hold the Pepper
Come ye addicts of melody! After long eclipse, Bel Canto shines again!
The long listen
A conversation with maestro Gil Rose of Odyssey Opera.
All I mask of you
Amore Opera, an old-fashioned, adventurous little company that performs ambitious and sometimes delectably obscure but worthy repertory at the Riverside Theatre, is now (through Sunday) presenting Un ballo in maschera.
From Hell
In March 1973, OONY’s second season featured Francesca da Rimini starring Raina Kabaivanska, Plácido Domingo and Matteo Manuguerra.
Gold rush
Now we find Mariella Devia, a diva held in near mythic regard due to her vocal longevity, with competing videos of two of her performances that were released, literally, on the same day.
Live and empoisoned
In how many operas does the heroine drink poison and then go lengthily mad?
Cherubino jumps the shark
Homer, inspired by many a muse, sang not of sequels to his Iliad.
The lady’s a star
I just arrived back from Stella di Napoli’s.
State of grace
Lawrence Brownlee’s new album Virtuoso Rossini Arias demonstrate both how far the tenore di grazia has come in the operatic world.
Beyond the Valley of the Freemasons
An impresario with a hit on his hands—Emanuel Schikaneder, for instance, after the initial run of Die Zauberflöte—will crave nothing so much as an opportunity to hit the same bell.
The odd Pasquale
At the age of thirty, Donizetti was already the experienced composer of about eighteen operas, both serious and farcical, but as Olivo e Pasquale (currently undergoing its American premiere run at Amore Opera) makes clear, the comic works were no slight matter.
Smiles on a summer night
Apparently, we learn very little in life; the follies we pursue with haste in youth are answered by the follies we commit in age with great deliberation.
Conquering Ciro
By the time Rossini was 20, he had produced six operas, most of them brief, comic and slight. He admitted to admiring Mozart (not then well known south of the Alps), but the melodies of his early works show more of the influence of Paisiello.
Queen of the Pirates
[This article originally appeared in the print zine precursor to this site, one of a series of surveys of live recordings by critic Leila de Lakmé.] Leyla Gencer. The very name is exotic. She was an artist of Turkish ancestry who, during the 1950s and 60s, held her own despite the presence of Maria Callas, […]
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!
Quinn Kelsey and Lise Davidsen star in the Met's new Macbeth. We're giving away one ticket, so screw your courage to the sticking place and enter now!
