Patrice Chéreau, the humanist in provocateur’s clothing, returned to Wagner in 2007 at La Scala with Daniel Barenboim and Waltraud Meier.
I am happy to finally add Les contes d’Hoffmann to the playlist in a Salzburg performance from 2003 with Neil Shicoff in one of his parade roles.
This week, I offer you a classic rendition of Richard Strauss’ tale of the House of Atreus starring Ursula Schröder-Feinen, Astrid Varnay, Leonie Rysanek, Theo Adam, and Hans Hopf under Karl Böhm’s direction.
The haunted Mycenae of Patrice Chéreau’s enthralling production of Richard Strauss’s Elektra had seized its viewers in an unrelenting vise that never relaxed even at its quietly shattering conclusion.
“I will never sing the role again. It was frightful. We were a set of madwomen…There is nothing beyond Elektra. We have lived and reached the furthest boundaries in dramatic writing for the voice with Wagner. But Richard Strauss goes beyond him. His singing voices are lost. We have come to a full stop.”
With help from the Met’s invaluable performance archive, here is a look back at just some of what you could have seen, and perhaps did see, on October 31st through the years at the Met.
Anja Silja staked a claim as a leading Senta of her era with a series of searing performances of Der Fliegende Holländer while in her early twenties.
None of my previous Elektra experiences prepared me for this stunning, overwhelming performance from the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence.
“Conduct Salome and Elektra as if they were by Mendelssohn: Fairy music.” Seriously, how often has that happened?
Since 2010 I’ve been reading nothing but horror being heaped upon the Met’s new Ring. It’s been like a cross between a cruise ship size buffet spread of internet snarking and a slasher film re-cast with music critics.
Certain opera productions become the stuff of legend as much for the circumstances surrounding the performance as for the musical results.
Directors love directing Wagner, or rather, they love directing their versions of Wagner. They don’t seem to like the operas very much. We all know what we’re going to see if we travel to Bayreuth or Berlin or Stuttgart for an evening: the regietheater world of concept grafted over concept grafted over concept with 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…
“Mirror, mirror on the wall, who are the greatest divas (Classic and Contemporary) of them all?” And the mirror replied, “I’ll tell you right after the jump!”
And now, cher public, let’s put today’s singers, the Contemporary Divas, under the microscope. How do they stack up?
A YouTuber new to La Cieca by the name of Promptersbox, has managed to make available the entire La Scala Tristan und Isolde. Your doyenne is not sure exactly where the intense magic in this performance comes from: Patrice Chéreau, Daniel Barenboim or Waltraud Meier. But magic it is!
Introducting a new guest critic, Giulia Grisi, who blogs regularly for “Il Corriere della Grisi.” La Scala’s 2007-8 opera season opened last night (December 7) with a new production of Tristan und Isolde. The Milanese theatre hadn’t presented Wagner’s masterpiece since 1978, when Carlos Kleiber‘s masterful interpretation became an instant classic, in spite of a…
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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