Joyce DiDonato admits that she is “a problem solver, a dreamer, and—yes I’m a belligerent optimist.”
With no disrespect to Nadine Sierra, who as Lucia acquits herself honorably if not magically in vocal terms, the undisputed cause célèbre here is director Simon Stone.
Saturday’s performance of Le nozze di Figaro at the Met mined the humor from Mozart’s divine setting of Beaumarchais’s play about a crazy day in the Almaviva household.
Born on this day in 1915 singer and songwriter Billie Holiday.
Nina Stemme’s Elektra always seemed the sanest individual onstage never quite giving over to obsession or hysteria with a good line in mordant sarcasm and contempt.
People these days often exclaim “…..is everything!” but often it feels like gross hyperbole. But surely anyone who has seen Mark Morris’s L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato since it premiered in 1989 would agree that it is indeed everything!
I was reminded at the Met’s season premiere of Eugene Onegin Friday night always to expect the unexpected.
For those who complain (not entirely unfairly) that Handel operas are “just a string of da capo arias,” I sometimes mutter to myself, “Have they ever tried Rameau?”
Gabriela Benacková, one of Trove Thursday’s favorite sopranos, turns 75 tomorrow, so we celebrate with two rare complete Verdi portrayals.
Eleanora Buratto at this fully matured point of her career has a warm, creamy full lyric soprano that has the roundness and sweet warmth of a Freni but can also expand into the spinto power of a Tebaldi.
In 2022, making Così fan tutte intimate is not a radical act. Making it enjoyable, however, is.
Dramaturgically, The Hours is a mixed bag: I wouldn’t discard it, but I would want to fix it. But simply as an evening of gorgeous music and singing, it’s cordon bleu.
Ana Maria Martinez is an artist of the first caliber, which was richly evident throughout this imaginative, substantial (nearly two hours!) program, which was (thank you!) offered without a music stand.
Happy 58th birthday to actress and singer Vanessa Williams.
The Boston Symphony and Alban Berg’s “Wir arme Leut” spread musical riches at Carnegie Hall.
While it must be admitted that Elza van den Heever doesn’t have an ideally warm and agile Handel voice, she evidenced fierce control over her instrument and skillfully built a powerful portrait of the courageous Rodelida fighting for her survival.
This sterling revival shows the Metropolitan to be surviving well and in good shape.
There was something very Russian—indeed, Chekhovian—about the mix of joy and tears, as the Academy of Vocal Arts performed Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin
When was the last time the Metropolitan Opera mounted a new production that was musically outstanding yet the direction and/or design mostly sucked?
Jordi Savall and William Christie, 80 and 77 respectively, stand as the two senior masters whose recordings and appearances have done the most over the past decades to build a healthy local enthusiasm for pre-Classical music.
In any case, we are now in the Queen’s garden of the Palace in Madrid. It is the day before the coronation of King Philip. Coronation? What coronation?
The only correct version of Don Carlos must be in French. That is the language that Verdi composed it in and he made all his revisions in that language.
In online discussion on “Favorite Opera” and cuts in opera in general, it seems Don Carlos (in its original French title) or Don Carlo (as it is better known in Italian) – with or without the “s” – generally get the most votes both as favorite and as an opera from which deplorable cuts are made.
Trove Thursday offers Shostakovich’s 1962 Katerina Izmailova with Australian soprano Marie Collier as its anti-heroine and Jon Vickers as her lover.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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