With La Scala’s plan to open on December 7 with a new Lucia di Lammermoor thwarted, Trove Thursday sets its Wayback Machine to nearly 50 years ago to present two of the 20th century’s greatest madwomen—Joan Sutherland and Beverly Sills—denounced by Plàcido Domingo and Alfredo Kraus respectively, with the former pair consoled by Kurt Moll‘s luxurious Raimundo.
Patrice Chéreau, the humanist in provocateur’s clothing, returned to Wagner in 2007 at La Scala with Daniel Barenboim and Waltraud Meier.
Enthusiasts of Janácek’s opera will want to pick up this video immediately.
The relative obscurity of Karol Szymanowski‘s Krol Roger (King Roger, 1924) can only be blamed on its being in Polish. The music is often as thrilling as anything by Janácek or Bartók, and the libretto by Jaroslow Iwaszkiewicz (heavily adapted by the composer) is as full of provocative philosophical ideas as operas by those composers…
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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