Verdi’s Giovanna d’Arco in a rare NYC concert performance with Margaret Price, Carlo Bergonzi and Sherrill Milnes.
Dame Janet Baker turns 87 tomorrow and Trove Thursday celebrates with Handel’s rare Admeto conducted by the great Sir Anthony Lewis in which Baker’s bold Alceste vies with Sheila Armstrong’s sparkling Antigona for her deluded husband Admeto’s affections.
On Sunday afternoon, husband-and-wife duo Roberto Alagna and Aleksandra Kurzak presented a charming program of operatic favorites from the patio of the Château de la Chèvre d’Or in Èze, France.
Nathan Hull was an operatic Quixote who did not go it alone, but inspired bands of optimists, giving proper employment to the many worthy New Yorkers mad enough to study voice and pleasure rare elsewhere to those of us thrilled to take it in.
Trove Thursday presents Alzira—derided by some as Verdi’s worst opera—in a 1968 Carnegie Hall concert with Gianfranco Cecchele, Louis Quilico (star of last night’s Met Rigoletto stream) and Elinor Ross, who died in March at age 93.
Another point of etiquette is that a gentleman must never leave the ladies of his own box alone.
Trove Thursday uncovered two broadcasts of Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia that share a fascinating nexus: in each an enduring superstar tenor—José Carreras/Alfredo Kraus—is poisoned by a soon-to-vanish rising-star soprano—Vasso Papantoniou/Margarita Castro-Alberty.
Renée Fleming presented a satisfyingly eclectic and quietly daring program of songs and arias, an interesting timestamp on a career that, despite its crepuscular vibe, seems as active as ever.
Ordinarily we’d be listening to Bayreuth Festival broadcasts this week but instead Trove Thursday steps up with a true Wagner rarity: Die Feen from the Wiener Staatsoper starring as Ada, the fairy in love with a mortal, Gundula Janowitz, who turns 83 on Sunday.
Sonya Yoncheva’s first-ever Princess Romazov was one of this summer’s casualties but Trove Thursday steps up with a rare 1960 in-house pirate of Giordano’s Fedora starring Renata Tebaldi, Giuseppe di Stefano and Tito Gobbi along with a pair of Tebaldi-di Stefano Puccini highlights from the early 1950s.
I still remember, and some of it quite vividly, what it was like to experience Achim Freyer‘s intense and groundbreaking Ring production all these years later.
Such a sleek, polished finish is a testament to the incredible resources and experience at the Met’s disposal – to coordinate this livestream across two different continents so seamlessly and with such flair is very impressive indeed.
We can delight in films that make use of motif to give opera-lovers an extra little jiggle.
Starring Anna Netrebko, Piotr Beczala, Mariusz Kwiecien and Alexei Tanovitski, conducted by Valery Gergiev. From October 5, 2013.
Oh, yes, it’s Ladies’ Night and the feeling’s right! Oh, yes, it’s Ladies’ Night! Oh, what a night!
What does the opera singer of the future look like?
Starring Sonya Yoncheva, Susanna Phillips, Michael Fabiano, Lucas Meachem, Alexey Lavrov, Matthew Rose and Paul Plishka, conducted by Marco Armiliato. From February 24, 2018.
Starring Anita Hartig, Anita Rachvelishvili, Aleksandrs Antonenko and Ildar Abdrazakov; conducted by Pablo Heras-Casado. Transmitted live on November 1, 2014.
With the Fourth of July approaching, Trove Thursday turns to a quintessentially American opera with the broadcast of the world premiere—some 60 years after its composition—of Scott Joplin’s Treemonisha with Alpha Floyd, Seth McCoy and Simon Estes conducted by Robert Shaw.
This video recording of Il trovatore is sensational for all the right and wrong reasons simultaneously.
Starring Lisette Oropesa, Michael Fabiano and Artur Rucinski; conducted by Maurizio Benini. Transmitted live on October 26, 2019.
Trove Thursday offers a problematic yet fascinating work that would almost certainly not be staged today: Il Guarany by Carlos Gomes featuring João Gibin, Gianna d’Angelo, Piero Cappuccilli and Nicola Zaccaria.
Robert Wilson is many things: a visionary (certainly); an iconoclast, artist, director, and designer of sets, lighting, costumes, movement (and furniture). Yet his work is never boring (well, at least not intentionally).
Conducted by Riccardo Frizza; starring Renée Fleming, Lawrence Brownlee, John Osborn, Barry Banks and Kobie van Rensburg. Transmitted live on May 1, 2010.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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