Telling the glory of God
“The heavens are telling” begins the famous chorus that ends the first section of The Creation.
Alice Tully Hall
63 pieces since 2009.
63
pieces
18
years
A touch of classic
“Trove Thursday” offfers Joseph Martin Kraus’s superb Aeneas i Cartago, eller Dido och Aeneas—in Swedish!—starring a luminous Elisabeth Söderström as the doomed Queen.
Tragically Hippolyte
I had my head in my hands groaning in disbelief instead of joining in the general applause around me.
True Romans
On Saturday Juilliard 415 welcomed the sterling 10-member Belgian group Vox Luminis for a striking program of “Handel in Rome.”
Catch me if you cantata
J.S. Bach doesn’t get a lot of attention on this site although he wrote tons of vocal music.
Crepuscolo
“It’s not easy being green”: especially if you’re the two greatest Italian opera composers.
I love you to death
New York fans of 17th century Italian vocal music should be rejoicing this month.
Goodbye, gorgeous!
Can a surfeit of pleasure become—in the end—unsatisfying?
And three for Mahler
A poster outside Carnegie Hall proclaimed “Mahler Well Met” and to some degree it proved to be true.
Intermezzo (a love story)
The glorious and beloved Elisabeth Söderström tackles the fiendishly difficult role of Christine in a 1974 performance from Glyndebourne.
Tomb service
An outstanding performance of Weber’s Euryanthe to share on “Trove Thursday.”
The most dangerous game
“Trove Thursday” presents a recording of the rare L’Olimpiade featuring Joan Caplan and Rita Shane in the two leading castrato roles.
Mahlerei
strong>Christian Gerhaher does not appear at first to sing but rather to speak on pitches, telling stories, explaining words by lingering on them or biting them off short.
That’s how they did it
Idomeneo proved enormously moving while a much more complicated Così fan Tutte went for shallow romantic hijinks stripping that work of its darkly ambiguous disturbing view of love.
La Duchesse s’amuse
As promised, “Trove Thursday” offers Don Quichote chez la duchesse, a second nearly unknown opera based on Cervantes’ towering literary masterpiece.
“Troppo” notte
Thanks to the generosity of a parterre reader, “Trove Thursday” presents a rare recording from the famed Carnegie Hall series curated by Matthew Epstein to commemorate Handel’s tercentenary.
A free soul
To be honest, I have never seen anything quite like Matthias Goerne in recital. He seemed so wonderfully free.
Castaway
The wonderful Spanish mezzo Teresa Berganza celebrates her 81st birthday next week and “Trove Thursday” gets the party started.
Martyr system
William Christie’s Les Arts Florissants made a much-anticipated appearance at Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival Saturday performing Theodora.
Megalomania in mufti
Who needs sets and costumes anyway?
Revival meeting
For many in New York and around the world, if the name William Christie appears on a concert or opera program, it’s a must-attend.
Regni Dessay
Almost exactly twenty years after her auspicious Metropolitan Opera debut as the Fiakermilli in Arabella and a year following what she has claims was her final appearance on the operatic stage, Natalie Dessay returned Sunday afternoon to Lincoln Center—to sing opera.
Practical magic
Notable purveyor of mayhem and infanticide Medea has lately been missing from the local operatic scene, but Sunday afternoon sections of the recently renovated Alice Tully Hall were singed by Canadian soprano Dominique Labelle’s blazing incarnation of the Greek sorceress.
One charming afternoon
In recent years the enterprising Dell’Arte Opera Ensemble has brightened the usually arid weeks of August in New York City with some worthy operatic showcases for young singers.
I’ll take the fall
The days are getting shorter, but you can keep the prattle going this fall’s Talk of the Town! You will, you can, you must join in the discussion about: Great mezzo soprano performances (October),
Gained in translation (November), Teleport me back to… (December).