Thoroughly Modern Jessye Thoroughly Modern Jessye

A second Trove Thursday marking the recent passing of Jessye Norman focuses on the soprano’s catholic repertoire with three 20th century works: Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex; Berg’s Altenberg Lieder; and Franck’s Les Béatitudes.

Kitchen confidential Kitchen confidential

Since 1985, from the Chicago Symphony at Carnegie Hall to the Welsh National Opera visiting BAM and from Chicago Lyric to New York City Opera to the Met, I’ve never encountered a bad Falstaff—or one that didn’t astound and delight me. 

A whiter shade of pale A whiter shade of pale

While the celebrity-studded, expensively-dressed audience gathered for the gala opening of the Metropolitan Opera’s 2015-2016 season seemed genuinely enthralled by Monday evening’s performance of Otello, it was more likely swept away by the power of Verdi’s genius than by Bartlett Sher’s puzzling, inert new production.

The Price is right!

With the new year always come new year’s resolutions, and La Cieca thinks that this year her resolution will be to stop making snap judgments. La Cieca hopes you understand that she only got into the habit of making all those snap judgments because she is right almost all of the time. But now and…