Prophet center
Trove Thursday couldn’t wait until Passover to offer Mendelssohn’s Elijah featuring two of my favorite singers, Gabriela Benacková and José van Dam, joined by Florence Quivar, Francisco Araiza and Thomas Moser.
Thomas Mole
10 pieces since 2011 — in 7 roles, at 6 companies, most often at Royal Opera House.
10
pieces
7
roles
6
companies
16
years
Role Ahab/Tenor II
Role Arturo
Being alive
Orfeo’s latest edition is a 1978 performance of Lucia di Lammermoor with a very estimable cast that on its surface may seem a tad mundane but the extensive liner notes (with performance photos) tell the story of why it held such magic.
Role Eumée
Old wife’s tale
Pénélope at the Bayerische Staatsoper’s summer festival spotlights the crossroads between the nostalgic and the progressive.
Role Herod
Salo, me
David McVicar’s ravishingly lurid 2008 production of Strauss’s Salome for the Royal Opera House Covent Garden has been issued as an HD-filmed DVD from Opus Arte. Now, Strauss’s music is ravishingly lurid on its own, so I came to this production, which claims as a visual source reference the Pasolini film Salo, The 120 Days […]
Role Loge
Back over the rainbow bridge
“Let’s start at the very beginning” of Kent Nagano’s pioneering complete Ring project which was recently discussed here in depth in Montagu James’s review of Die Walküre.
Role Palestrina
For art’s sake
Few operas scream “summertime easy listening” like Pfitzner’s Palestrina—all 225 minutes of it—so Trove Thursday presents a performance from the Royal Opera’s 1997 New York visit conducted by Christian Thielemann.
Role Tristan
I shall be released
Welcome, beloveds, to the Jessye Norman Memorial Museum. I’ll be the docent for your tour today.
Der Meisterdirigent
Christian Thielemann is widely regarded as our time’s preeminent master of the Austro-German symphonic ensemble.