My first exposure to Lucia di Lammermoor came under the auspices of The Three Stooges.
I need to get something off my chest. I love bel canto.
Come ye addicts of melody! After long eclipse, Bel Canto shines again!
The four leading roles in La Straniera were all attractively cast by Teatro Nuovo with fresh, promising young voices that did not seem quite ready for the big time.
The finals on Sunday seemed a bit like the modern-day operatic equivalent of the Roman colosseum.
April brought I Puritani to Palermo’s centerpiece Teatro Massimo.
Edita Gruberova takes on the requirements of the title role in Bellini’s Norma.
In observance of Edita’s Gruberova’s 50th anniversary in opera, I would like to offer a series of commentaries, over successive days, of my favorite performances.
It was an afternoon of spectacular singing, particularly from the two principals and the glorious Lyric Opera Chorus.
Sir David McVicar’s inept and dreary new production of Bellini’s Norma proved to be more satisfying than it had been on opening night when it returned to the Met Friday evening thanks to its new leading ladies Angela Meade and Jamie Barton
Psychology is encoded in the composer’s vocal lines more than his librettist’s words.
I suspect that David McVicar’s new production of the Metropolitan Opera’s Norma had its most congenial showing as a totality, specifically in the HD format at the movie theater.
Ali Baba ou Les Quarantes Voleurs continues straight-tone September with Teresa Stich-Randall as its heroine while Alfredo Kraus scales the heights with another Nadir.
It is much to be regretted that song recitalists stick to the tried, the true, the excessively familiar when the repertory of song is so vast, so full of treasures ready for the light
A brilliant production of La Juive like that of Peter Konwitschny generalizes the message that mindless hate does not pay and the mindless mob is always the enemy of civilization.
Someone—a deranged purist no doubt—heckled Javier Camarena from the balcony of the opera house for withholding the infamous high F during “Credeasi, misera.”
How many books have been published about Anna Maria Sofia Cecilia Kalogeropoulou Meneghini Callas, great operatic goddess of the dark arts?
“The music’s fun, but doesn’t Rossini repeat himself?”
In how many operas does the heroine drink poison and then go lengthily mad?
By the time Roberto Devereux saw its premiere at Napoli’s Teatro San Carlo on 29 October, 1837, Gaetano Donizetti had lost, in an 18-month time frame, both his parents, two still-born children, and his beloved wife Virginia.
Bellini blossomed over us like a love fest.
Remember that time you went to the opera and the entire evening was perfection?
Whatever happened to Stefania Bonfadelli?
The key to enjoying Bellini’s I Capuleti e Montechi is to do a hard factory reset and reformat your brain to forget all other works based on Romeo and Juliet.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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