Ilana Walder-Biesanz reports from The Santa Fe Opera, where Tobias Picker‘s latest opera falls short, a new Rodelinda scintillates, and sumptuous singing abounds across the entire repertoire.
A uniformly strong cast triumphs over a dull production of Don Carlo at the Dallas Opera.
Ahead of their opening in Don Carlo in Dallas tonight, Christopher Corwin chats with Nicole Car and Étienne Dupuis — and offers a special edition of Chris’s Cache!
Rachel Willis-Sørensen and Stephen Costello make their returns to the Met later this month and Grand Tier Grab Bag anticipates their performances by sharing them in the Act II duet from Don Carlo recorded in Munich this spring as well as a taste of Willis-Sørensen’s Liebestod
The term “narrative prosthesis” refers to the tendency for works of literature to use disability as the conflict upon which the whole narrative hinges. Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick is a quintessential example of “narrative prosthesis.”
The Richard Tucker Foundation Gala has always been a big annual celebration of the voice with an emphasis on big-voiced singers in big repertoire (not much Wagner usually, though…). Like so many reliable operatic institutions it has struggled for survival after the pandemic.
Rigoletto is the perfect opera. The story is straightforward and powerful; none of the action occurs backstage or between scenes or twenty-seven years before curtain rise; and the ethical anvil lands not once but twice, on the title character singing, “La maledizione!” The curse!
Opera took center stage on the final weekend of the Philadelphia Orchestra season.
This Sunday marked a muted return of the Richard Tucker Foundation Gala, which had the dubious distinction of the fourth edition not to feature a prizewinner and perhaps the first not to provide complete orchestral and choral accompaniment for its performers.
For Philadelphia opera lovers, October means the Giargiari Bel Canto Competition—a staple event for the Academy of Vocal Arts, and a pipeline for the public to discover some of their strongest resident artists.
After putting a hiatus on their awards in 2020 and 2021 (for reasons that are all too well-known to all of us), the Richard Tucker Foundation Gala returned on Sunday evening November 13 honoring soprano Angel Blue the 2022 Award winner.
Come back, Big Clock! We need you more than ever!
The New York City Opera has become an elusive “now you see it, now you don’t” presence in the New York opera scene since the departure of main sponsor and chairman of the board Roy G. Niederhoffer in 2019.
The winners of the evening were the composer Riccardo Zandonai and Teatro Grattacielo which pulled off a near-impossible feat with success.
The people—I assume most of them were natives—seemed pretty happy at La Boheme at the San Carlo on Saturday night. For one thing, the theater was packed to the top tier, all of us masked (vigili di fuoco—firemen—made sure of that)
Sunday’s Richard Tucker Gala at Carnegie Hall was unusually satisfying despite a less than usually superstarry line-up.
Michael Mayer‘s production of La traviata at the Met is so timid, so devoid of insight, so cynically pandering and gaudy that I hardly feel like it even matters what I think of the performances of the current cast.
From up close, the miked opera singer can be a bit tough to take.
Verdi’s Rigoletto returned to the Met Friday in the stilted “Las Vegas” production by Michael Mayer, with mostly competent singing from a good-looking cast.
It’s time to add more legends to my Mixcloud site: Mario Del Monaco, Raina Kabaivanska, and Tito Gobbi star in this 1962 performance of Otello from Covent Garden led by Georg Solti.
The annual Richard Tucker Gala is probably the event of the year to indulge your love of verismo staples and can belto screaming.
After nearly three years and over 20 performances Michael Mayer’s “Las Vegas” production of Rigoletto at the Metropolitan Opera still outrages many.
The Metropolitan Opera’s much vaunted so-called “Tudor Ring” of three royal operas by Donizetti got off to a bumpy start Saturday afternoon with a revival of Anna Bolena that stubbornly refused to cohere either musically or dramatically.
No surprises this week: back to normal with what is perhaps the world’s most favorite opera: Puccini’s La bohème.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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