Christopher Corwin speaks to rising bass-baritone Le Bu about his journey from Yancheng, China to the Met (with a stop in Wichita) and what important roles await him.
While refined, Lisa della Casa sings “Four Last Songs” deeply alert to the text and with effortless vocalization that sounds fresh and spontaneous.
Eli Jacobson inaugurates parterre box’s new “Perspectives on the Aria” feature with a deep dive into Leonore’s “Abscheulicher!” from Beethoven’s Fidelio which returns to the Metropolitan Opera tomorrow with the Met’s current dramatic soprano star Lise Davidsen as Leonore.
The crown jewel of this year’s Munich Festival is undoubtedly Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, which opened the Festival on June 29 and will close the Festival with an “Opera for All” screening on July 31.
Quarantining during COVID dramatically increased my compulsion to collect and compare interpretations.
Imagine my surprise then when I discovered a new recording of Tristan und Isolde released by Navona Records, a small label based in New Hampshire that primarily focuses on recitals of chamber music, solo works, and smaller ensemble pieces.
“Die Zauberflöte is an opera!” “No, it’s the first musical comedy!”
Cycle II represented an embarrassment of musical riches.
Christian Thielemann is widely regarded as our time’s preeminent master of the Austro-German symphonic ensemble.
Wagner’s Ring is an artistic masterpiece that is peerless in its ability to continually reveal layers of musical, theatrical, and philosophical insight
Well here we are, beloveds, still swathed in the warm glow of the Leonard Bernstein centennial. Box sets abound like bunnies in a hutch.
I wish to introduce our younger Parterrians to the magical Martha Mödl to commemorate the opening of the Bayreuther Festspiele which opens tomorrow afternoon.
The very first Vienna post-war performance of Elektra.
Leonie Rysanek, would have turned 90 today.
Myto’s transfer of Herbert von Karajan’s star-bedecked 1958 Die Walküre from La Scala gives collectors on a budget access to one of the legendary performances committed to tape.
The curious things about accepted wisdom is that sometimes it’s correct.
A new CD
features the ten most gorgeous minutes recorded by a tenor in Wagner since World War II.
Midway through his traversal of Wagner’s 10 mature operas for PentaTone, we’ve learned this about Marek Janowski:
When a new production of Fidelio premiered at the Met in 1960, the opera had been absent from the repertoire since 1951, the post-war return of Kirsten Flagstad as a still effective Leonore and led by Bruno Walter. In the period between the two productions a new generation of singers had begun to make their…
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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