The lady or the Tiber
On his 86th birthday last month, the great Austrian conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt announced his retirement.
Austria
As on through the seasons we sail
Trove Thursday looks forward to spring via Haydn’s beguiling oratorio Die Jahreszeiten (The Seasons) in a splendid rendition from the 1981 Salzburg Festival with Ileana Cotrubas, Francisco Araiza and José van Dam, James Levine conducting.
From the house of the living
Pierre Boulez continuously challenged me and totally changed the way I listen to music.
Embroidered silk
Maria Agresta‘s delicately-acted, sumptuously-sung seamstress transformed what might have been just an average Wednesday night revival into something finer.
Dienstag mit Marianne
I think my love/hate relationship with Händel stems from the fact that during my early days as an operagoer there simply wasn’t any to hear.
Dream girl
Whatever happened to Stefania Bonfadelli?
Head over heels
I guess you have spoken: “Bring us insane divas in operas we already know!”
Stage beauty
Since the 1916 version of Ariadne auf Naxos which we all know and love had its premiere at Wiener Staatsoper, it seems most appropriate to bring you this 1967 performance from the same venue, with a legendary cast at its zenith.
Youth is wasted on the old
Piotr Beczala, Soile Isokoski and Kwangchul Youn star in this 2009 performance of Faust from the Wiener Staatsoper, idiomatically conducted by Bertrand de Billy.
Paris original
Another month, another La Traviata release on video.
A life with a hero
By some quirk of fate, I tend to hear about the deaths of many operatic legends via radio news while out driving.
Something extramarital
Saturday evening conductor Will Crutchfield revived Donizetti’s La Favorite—unheard in New York for fifteen years.
About a boy
So what’s up with Nina Stemme’s Stimme?
Fungus home
I can’t think of another 20th century opera which has grown so fast in popularity so long after its composition than Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk.
Simon, pure
Celebrating Simon Keenlyside, the most popular artist on your alte Jungfer’s Mixcloud Web site.
Pli Ceylon pli
Theater an der Wien did justice to Bizet earlier this season with a cast starring Diana Damrau, Dmitry Korchak, and Nathan Gunn.
Henry, sweet Henry
Although she began her career nearly 25 years ago recording and performing lots of baroque music, I was surprised to see German soprano Dorothea Röschmann promoted as the star attraction of an all-Purcell concert Sunday at Carnegie Hall.
Bohemian
No surprises this week: back to normal with what is perhaps the world’s most favorite opera: Puccini’s La bohème.
The Rusticana at the end of the universe
Jonas Kaufmann in a wifebeater is but one of the attractions of the Salzburg Festival production of Cavalleria rusticana, a telecast of which you can peruse after the jump.
So I married an axe murderess
I think the sturdier of you will enjoy Nina Stemme’s Elektra from Saturday night at Wiener Staatsoper.
Between two worlds
If works like Salome and Erwartung defined modernism in the first decades of the 20th century, Die Tote Stadt and Palestrina represented the regressive avant garde.
How Green was my Verdi
As the world knows, Anja Harteros dropped out of this series of Don Carlo for a stab at Aïda in Rome. Illness sidelined Ramón Vargas from the title roles in both Don Carlo and Werther. While Wiener Staatsoper has been plagued with cancellations all season (even substituting L’elisir d’amore for La Juive at the last […]
Coming out
Christian Thielemann’s spirited, precise conducting and the superb, sumptuous playing of the Staatskapelle Dresden are the finest features of this strongly cast performance of Strauss’s Arabella.
Eternamente
“Go while the going is good. Knowing when to leave may be the smartest thing anyone can learn,” sings Fran in Promises, Promises, the 1968 Hal David/Burt Bacharach musical which apparently Edita Gruberová has never seen.
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).