Yes, there were other Giocondas if not of quite the same distinction. Chronologically…
Puccini’s schmaltziest, most melodic, most dramatically limp, most cynical, most obscure mature work
And what a luxury it is to experience this musically outstanding Parsifal with a cast of this caliber!
La forza del destino concluded its run at the Metropolitan Opera with a significant cast change.
Maria Callas’s official debut in opera was as La Gioconda in 1947 at the arena in Verona.
Next week Puccini’s La Rondine returns to the Met for the first time in eleven years, so Chris’s Cache offers three quite diverse sopranos as Magda: Ljuba Welitsch, Virginia Zeani, and Cristina Gallardo-Domâs.
The tragic speaker of Schubert’s Winterreise makes his fateful journey but once, yet some singers cannot help trodding the path again and again.
It’s time to discuss Zinka Milanov.
On this day in 1977 Alban Berg‘s Lulu premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in the as-yet incomplete 2 act version.
“What I am trying to achieve is to be what I am to the fullest. Black to the fullest, a musician to the fullest, a homosexual to the fullest.”
Amilcare Ponchielli’s La Gioconda might not be a perfect opera (though I don’t see why not) but it is one of my favorites…
And is this ‘Orpheus’ in the room with us right now?
Opera at the Kennedy Center has been in hibernation this winter.
It’s not hard not to feel jaded about Romeo and Juliet.
In an ingenious stroke of double casting, the Met’s new Forza del destino brings back the Marquis of Calatrava—father of the heroine Leonora, unintentionally killed in the opening scene by a bullet from her lover’s pistol—as Padre Guardiano, Father Superior of the monastery that will take her under its protection as a hermit in Act 2.
Those of us in New York City who relish 17th century Italian vocal music were offered an enticing banquet over the past few weeks.
Émigré, unfortunately, fails to do justice, either musically or theatrically, to this group of refugees or to the Shanghainese who took them in.
My sole live encounter with Seiji Ozawa coincided with his final appearances at the Metropolitan Opera, where he conducted its 2008 revival of Tchaikovsky’s Pikovaya Dama.
On this day in 1959 Alban Berg‘s Wozzeck had its Metropolitan Opera premiere (in English)
From a musical perspective, the evening came together admirably. As a work of theater, though, it was as stale as last week’s takeout.
Chris’s Cache celebrates Ewa Podles‘s long connection with Handel by featuring her in three complete, decidedly un-HIP operas spanning over twenty years
While you may need to bring along your Dramamine, the Met’s new production of La forza del destino, does—eventually—spin fast enough to achieve escape velocity.
Leos Janácek’s rise to international prominence as a Titan of music was dovetailed by a cluster of profoundly original operas that were written during his extraordinary autumnal years.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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