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!
The Met’s mostly successful revivals of The Queen of Spades and La bohème showcase the returns of Sonya Yoncheva and Corinne Winters
As for complete recordings of Il trovatore, which was discussed at some length last week, there are at least 200 of them, both studio and live.
Patrick Mack on the iconic Ethan Mordden‘s career and his first book on opera in 30 years – and it appears that time has mostly stopped in the Mordden manse.
As a burgeoning opera fan, I relied on YouTube to connect me with the art form.
This July, Munich played host to hordes of football fans in town for the European Championship—and arguably the two finest working sopranos today.
Yes, there were other Giocondas if not of quite the same distinction. Chronologically…
A revival of Peter Konwitschny’s rightly legendary Don Carlos and Dmitri Tcherniakov’s confounding new Salome: both turned out to be unforgettable!
Armide with a superbly grand Francophone heroine in Karina Gauvin and conducted by the always excellent Ivor Bolton.
Munich’s Bayerische Staatsoper’s victory lap at Carnegie Hall concluded Thursday night with a sumptuous Der Rosenkavalier spectacularly conducted by Kirill Petrenko
“Trove Thursday” presents a live Tristan 2 concert featuring one of my favorite dramatic sopranos. Gertrude Grob-Prandl.
“Trove Thursday” ushers in February with Catalani’s La Wally with a mountain-top cast of Renata Tebaldi, Renata Scotto, Mario del Monaco, Giangiacomo Guelfi and Giorgio Tozzi conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini.
Headlining the Met’s current revival of both Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci, Roberto Alagna was operating on all cylinders Monday evening.
A “lone voice in the wilderness” booed Barbara Frittoli’s calamitous Nedda.
Manon Lescaut was Giacomo Puccini’s first big international success. His publisher, Giulio Ricordi, tried to put him off the project by citing Jules Massenet’s very successful adaptation just nine years previously. Puccini was intent on making the story his own, insisting, “A woman like Manon can have more than one lover… I shall feel it…
Marek Janowski’s survey of Wagner operas on PentaTone so convincingly captures the pulse and dramatic flow of many of the works that the music-making at times sounds almost effortless.
In what may qualify as the most unholy alliance of Peter Gelb‘s tenure at the Met so far, since February the “Live in HD” performances from 2009 of both Turandot and Aida issued by Decca have been available from… Target. Only Target. They are scheduled for international release this July. Up until recently there has…
La Cieca’s spy reports from the Met: “A promising and delightful final dress of Ariadne yesterday.”
Sometimes it seems as though DVDs are released just for the sake of filling a hole in the catalogue. Considering the lack of anything truly distinctive in this 2007 production of Verdi’s La forza del destino from the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, that would certainly seem to be the case here. (If anyone is wondering, the…
Ioan Holender was General Manager of the Wiener Staatsoper for nineteen years, the longest anyone has held this post, and the august institution honored him with the gala to end all galas in the final days of his administration. With the goal of commemorating each of the 40 new productions premiered at the Staatsoper during…
First things first: how are the clothes? Well, there’s enough leather to fill The Eagle ten times over, and there’s definitely fodder for intermission conversation: an adorable tweedy, puffy coat for Uldino; the pimped-out spiky bike helmet with the L.E.D. lights for Attila; all the L.E.D. lights in fact, like the ones that outline Ezio’s…
A member of the cher public who attended last night’s premiere of Verdi’s Macbeth at the Opéra national de Paris filed this report: It was Paris Opera GM Gerard Mortier‘s penultimate opportunity – his term ends in July –  to moon opening night Parisian audiences and he did just that. He flew in bad-boy director…
Our Own Gualtier Maldè reports: The Met’s orchestra and audience have found a new conductor to love: Daniel Barenboim.  The debutante conductor got a huge ovation before he even lifted his baton. Lots of applause for Danny B. all night from an adoring audience including a generous amount at his final bow. There was lots of touchy feely…
La Cieca was just wondering about something yesterday on opera-l, and doggone if Anne Midgette wasn’t wondering about the same thing today in the New York Times. (That woman haunts my dreams, I tell you. It’s like she’s inside my head. Now, where was I? Oh, yes…) The point that dear Anne and I (among…
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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