“Trove Thursday” presents a complete Prodanà Nevesta (aka Die Verkaufte Braut, of course) by Smetana plus extended excerpts from a broadcast of Spontini’s La Vestale in its rarely heard original French version.
Trove Thursday presents a double dose of the Verdi Messa da Requiem performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Verdi’s Giovanna d’Arco in a rare NYC concert performance with Margaret Price, Carlo Bergonzi and Sherrill Milnes.
On this day in 1977 Alban Berg’s Lulu premiered at the Metropolitan Opera.
The proceedings took the virtue of longevity too much to heart; the night stretched on interminably.
Celebrating its third anniversary and next week’s Met opening, “Trove Thursday” offers a sumptuous banquet of the third and final chapter of divas in the “wrong language.”
On this day in 1977 Alban Berg‘s Lulu premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in the as-yet incomplete two act version.
On this day in 1996 mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli made her Metropolitan Opera stage debut as Despina.
Psychology is encoded in the composer’s vocal lines more than his librettist’s words.
I was extraordinarily happy Monday evening to encounter Angel Blue and Russell Thomas as Mimi and Rodolfo.
“Trove Thursday” offers Gemma di Vergy with the lovely, largely now forgotten Adriana Maliponte in the title role.
A live broadcast of the prologue to Ariadne auf Naxos featuring Julia Varady, a favorite sopranos in a role she sang only rarely.
Let’s call this meeting to order. My name is Patrick and I’m a boxset-aholic.
Today’s Rusalka video overview covers filmed performances of Dvorák’s opera since 2010.
Now we have considered the three “winners” in the Tristan competition, let’s turn to the also-rans, or, to be more optimistic, the runners up.
I was hopeful that my next operatic engagement would offer greater rewards: Norma at the Edinburgh Festival.
If you’ve been following the coverage of the Nézet-Séguin succession, you will note that a good deal of the coverage centers on whether the incoming maestro will “champion” this composer or that.
Giuseppe Verdi was so unhappy with the first production of his Giovanna d’Arco at La Scala in 1845 that he swore an oath to himself that he would never entrust that theatre with a prima again.
Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette, and a slew of their members of court are hanging out in the afterlife…
Maria Agresta‘s delicately-acted, sumptuously-sung seamstress transformed what might have been just an average Wednesday night revival into something finer.
Between them, Maria Guleghina, Marcello Giordani, James Morris and John Del Carlo have nearly 150 combined years of service on stage.
Simply put, Christine Goerke is a stupendous Elektra.
On Wednesday, the still-active, still radiant Virginia Zeani turns 90.
The CD explosion coincided with an enormous increase in interest in HIP (historically informed performance) so now there were lots of commercial recordings of the sort of operas I had turned to pirates to find.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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