Hustle your bustle
Opera San José‘s La Traviata has all the buzz and energy of a world premiere.
Vincenzo Bellini
69 pieces since 2005.
69
pieces
22
years
A favorite art song performance from Ivy Lin
Frida Leider is a major Wagnerian soprano who does not sound like a Wagnerian soprano.
Heaven is a place on earth
As part of Bass Month at the Box, Niel Rishoi considers six versions of “Vi ravviso, o luoghi ameni” from La sonnambula for Perspectives on an Aria.
The crowd-pleaser comes around
Juan Diego Flórez‘s charm and artistic sensibility remain as vibrant as ever, as seen at a recent Carnegie Hall recital.
Doublet trouble
A messy new I puritani at the Met is a historic and historical disappointment.
Ain’t no mountain high enough
A new production of La sonnambula at the Metropolitan Opera is musically charming if dramatically confounding.
A favorite Wagner performance from Ivy Lin
So many Frida Leider clips to choose from, but I’ll pick this one because it is so different from what we might think of as the “typical” Wagnerian dramatic soprano.
By Ivy Lin
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The gaul of some people
It’s Norma, darling. We know.
Masques et bergamasques
John Yohalem wraps up Donizetti Month at parterre box with a look back at nearly six decades of Donizetti operagoing.
Americans in Paris
Even if our monolingual American tourists can be the source of vexation for many a Parisian, our singers gave much for the city’s operagoers to admire this month in stylish productions of Semele at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and I Puritani at the Opéra Bastille.
The new Norma
In a splashy new recording of Norma, Marina Rebeka “is doing something very untoward, and it appears destructive to her voice.” It has Niel Rishoi worried.
Witchery and bitchery
Double double, toil and trouble, y’all, and happy spooky season from Slaylem. (It’s like Salem, but fun.)
Come, young waverers
Too young to be in love. But not too young to go to war or to die.
Thoughts on La Gioconda: the opera
Amilcare Ponchielli’s La Gioconda might not be a perfect opera (though I don’t see why not) but it is one of my favorites…
Let the children come to me
It says something about Boston’s opera scene that one of the most consistently ambitious events of the opera season is a one-off performance played by the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras.
Old school and better for it
As far as I know, Juan Diego Flórez last appeared in New York City (not totally to his advantage) as Alfredo in the Met’s garish new production of La Traviata back in December 2018, nearly five years ago.
Nymph errant
On this day in 1922 the Metropolitan Opera presented the company debut of Catalani’s Loreley.
The old work of genius
On this day in 1918 the Metropolitan Opera presented a new production of Bellini’s I puritani featuring soprano Maria Barrientos.
Ceaselessly beautiful
With the phenomenal cast that stacked Paris Opera’s production of I Capuleti e i Montecchi , it was easy to overlook the quirks of Bellini’s opera and get lost in the pleasures of glorious bel canto singing.
Letting their hair down
After the break the ladies stepped up their game so much that it elevated the night into legendary status: definitely one for the books!
The vanities of the divas
Maria Callas and Montserrat Caballé are two of the most highly-regarded and esteemed exponents of the great soprano roles in both bel canto and in the operas of Verdi, and their recordings are held as artistic triumphs of the highest order.
I Capuleti ed I Montecchi
Joining the Met’s week of bel canto reruns and Tuesday’s premiere of Teatro Nuovo’s exciting new project, Trove Thursday presents Bellini’s I Capuleti ed I Montecchi with Tatiana Troyanos and Cecilia Gasdia.
Nooks and crannies
Nathan Hull was an operatic Quixote who did not go it alone, but inspired bands of optimists, giving proper employment to the many worthy New Yorkers mad enough to study voice and pleasure rare elsewhere to those of us thrilled to take it in.