Hear the dance
I confess to being a “bad” dance fan: over the decades I’ve learned that if I don’t love (or at least like) the music, I won’t love the dance.
East Coast
At liberty to divulge
If it didn’t all work, it wouldn’t work at all.
Breaching the walls
On this day in 1975 Rossini‘s Siege of Corinth had its American stage premiere at the Metropolitan Opera
Decadent genealogies
Arnold Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder and Giacomo Puccini’s Turandot are, in their different ways, the final decadent flowering of a musical tradition at its twilight.
Still glowin’, still crowin’, still goin’ strong
Matthew Polenzani returned triumphantly to his comfort zone in a Philadelphia Chamber Music Society recital on April 2.
Perché chiuso?
On this day in 1975 soprano Magda Olivero made her historic, belated Metropolitan Opera debut as Tosca
Thoughts on La Gioconda: the others
Yes, there were other Giocondas if not of quite the same distinction. Chronologically…
Dancing at the edge of the world
Puccini’s schmaltziest, most melodic, most dramatically limp, most cynical, most obscure mature work
Du weisst, wo du mich wiederfinden kannst!
And what a luxury it is to experience this musically outstanding Parsifal with a cast of this caliber!
Character is destiny
La forza del destino concluded its run at the Metropolitan Opera with a significant cast change.
Thoughts on La Gioconda: Tebaldi
Thoughts on La Gioconda: Callas
Maria Callas’s official debut in opera was as La Gioconda in 1947 at the arena in Verona.
Spit or swallow
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.
If on a winter’s night a traveler
The tragic speaker of Schubert’s Winterreise makes his fateful journey but once, yet some singers cannot help trodding the path again and again.
Thoughts on La Gioconda: Milanov
It’s time to discuss Zinka Milanov.
Special baby
On this day in 1977 Alban Berg‘s Lulu premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in the as-yet incomplete 2 act version.
Femenine mystique
“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.”
Thoughts on La Gioconda: the opera
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…
The artist is present
And is this ‘Orpheus’ in the room with us right now?
Bird brain
Opera at the Kennedy Center has been in hibernation this winter.
A fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes
It’s not hard not to feel jaded about Romeo and Juliet.
The commendatore effect
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.
Garden varieties
Those of us in New York City who relish 17th century Italian vocal music were offered an enticing banquet over the past few weeks.
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).