A spouse tale
A performance of Gluck’s Alceste from Wiener Staatsoper in June 2016.
Austria
Blut force
The very first Vienna post-war performance of Elektra.
Chanson d’amour
Much like Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, which launched the Met’s 2016-2017 season, Kaija Saariaho’s L’Amour de Loin is an opera about love and death.
Leonie on the Nile
Leonie Rysanek, would have turned 90 today.
Trouble in Thebes
What to do with all those glorious short operas: play them alone or find companion pieces?
The lady is a camp
Verdi’s Macbeth gets true blood-and-guts treatment from Guillermo Sarabia and the legendary Marisa Galvany.
Strike up the banned
Jonny spielt auf, the second opera by 26-year-old composer Ernest K?enek, was such a huge success after its 1927 Leipzig premiere that in the following season it was performed 491 times in Germany alone.
One night of love
Your alte Jungfer’s requisite Kuschelkatze (pictured) arrived on my doorstep in Mariahilf with the name of Tristan.
Beyond the forest
Mimìs, Violettas, and Cio-Cio-Sans may live, love, and meet their ends without a tear from me, but I have never left a performance of Janácek’s The Cunning Little Vixen dry-eyed.
It happened one knight
Falstaff, Verdi’s totally unexpected, final, great comedic roar.
Pièce de résistance
I was hopeful that my next operatic engagement would offer greater rewards: Norma at the Edinburgh Festival.
All shook up
Subtitled by its creators as “A Fearful Radio Show,” this opera reminded Jerome Robbins of Orson Welles’ 1938 broadcast of War of the Worlds.
No saints in two acts
The cast of Wiener Staatsoper’s first-ever performance of Lulu in 1968 reads like a Who’s Who of then-contemporary Austro-German opera: the 28-year-old Anja Silja, Martha Mödl, Waldemar Kmentt, Hans Hotter, Hilde Konetzni, Manfred Jungwirth, Heinz Zednik, and Karl Böhm presiding over a production by Otto Schenk.
Nostra e del ciel è gloria
It’s time to add more legends to my Mixcloud site: Mario Del Monaco, Raina Kabaivanska, and Tito Gobbi star in this 1962 performance of Otello from Covent Garden led by Georg Solti.
Montag mit Marguerite
Berlioz apparently couldn’t decide if his was an oratorio or an opera, so he labeled it a “légende dramatique.” Since its 1846 Paris premiere, it remains on both opera stages and in concert halls, with its first Met staging in 1906.
Old school
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.
Evensong
When Neil Shicoff celebrated the 40th anniversary of his 1975 stage debut as Ernani in Cincinnati, no one had any idea that it would, essentially, mark the end of his career. In 2014 he added the roles of Canio (at Wiener Staatsoper) and Calaf (at Volksoper Wien) to his repertoire to great acclaim.
Forever young
Perhaps the most admirable project of Dominique Meyer’s Intendanz at Wiener Staatsoper is the traversal of the operas of Leos Janancek,.
She never sings anything twice
Can it all be true? She did what? He said what?
Day for knight
“Trove Thursday” continues its mini Shakespeare festival with a delightful performance by the New York City Opera of Die Lüstigen Weiber von Windsor.
Not only with words, but with lively gestures
“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.”
His cup runneth over
As portrayed by Vittorio Grigolo, Nemorino was a manic self-absorbed, probably bipolar, stalker who—against all odds and good sense—gets the poor girl.
Fast and furious
A 1984 performance of Handel’s Orlando with Marilyn Horne, Valerie Masterson, Marvis Martin, Jeffery Gall and Robert Lloyd, conducted by Charles Mackerras.
For the birds
A “lone voice in the wilderness” booed Barbara Frittoli’s calamitous Nedda.
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).