Who could doubt that Leontyne Price contains multitudes?
One of the more unfortunate losses from the Met’s closure is its revival of Simon Boccanegra, so Trove Thursday steps up with a 1975 Berlin performnace of Verdi’s dark masterpiece with Ingvar Wixell, Gundula Janowitz, José van Dam and Bruno Prevedi.
Having just watched and written about the famous Actors Studio Three Sisters, it also feels right to turn now to The Cherry Orchard—Chekhov’s final play—in a production from the BBC.
On this day in 1892, Adelina Patti sang her first and only performance of La traviata at the Metropolitan Opera House.
I need to get something off my chest. I love bel canto.
Trove Thursday couldn’t wait until Passover to offer Mendelssohn’s Elijah featuring two of my favorite singers, Gabriela Benacková and José van Dam, joined by Florence Quivar, Francisco Araiza and Thomas Moser.
As long as women have been preyed upon, Don Giovanni has been relevant.
It’s difficult to discuss Unknown Soldier without considering the impact of legacy.
We are in the midst of a titanic Beethoven onslaught prompted by the unstoppable need to commemorate the composer’s upcoming 250th birthday.
Ester, Liberatrice del Popolo Ebreo was presented in concert on Thursday night by Salon/Sanctuary Concerts in the Brotherhood Synagogue on Gramercy Park, in proper time for Purim.
Not everyone is happy about the Beethoven sestercentennial.
On this day in 1959 Alban Berg‘s Wozzeck had its Metropolitan Opera premiere.
Later this month Asmik Grigorian will star in Covent Garden’s new Jenufa, which Trove Thursday anticipates presenting the acclaimed Lithuanian soprano in a broadcast from 2014 of Tchaikovsky’s rare opera The Enchantress (Charodeyka).
VIctor Herbert demonstrates in this slight, affectionate piece a talent for keeping his musico-dramatic balls in the air, as Madeleine’s spirits juggle, fall, rise again, and droop to elegant resignation at the last.
I never imagined I’d see such a rote park-and-bark Wagner production created in 2020!
After tonight’s dark drab dud of a Dutchman, I was plunged into despair.
In the opera world, one of the pieces that underwent a multitude of changes in its reception was undoubtedly Richard Wagner’s longest and most Germanic opera, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.
Although I usually pretend that I don’t have the diva-worship gene, sharp-eyed readers of parterre box will know that since I joined the site in 2011 as “DeCaffarrelli” I have often swooned as an Ann Hallenberg-fanboi.
The season’s second cast delivered a satisfying, if not transcendent, La Traviata at the Met last night as they struggled to emerge from piles of jewel tone brocade and gold filigree.
Trove Thursday previews Massenet’s Werther—due to return next month at the Met—with a 1984 Paris performance starring two marvelous protagonists, Tatiana Troyanos and Alain Vanzo.
For those of you keeping track at home that’s four substitutions for three roles and the curtain hasn’t even gone up yet.
Sunday is Handel’s 335th birthday, an event Trove Thursday celebrates with Rodelinda, Regina de’Longobardi, one of the composer’s most popular works.
By an astounding coincidence, on Monday night Handel’s third and fourth extant operas were being performed simultaneously across the street from each other at Lincoln Center.
The success of Porgy and Bess at the Met forced bass-baritone Eric Owens, the newly installed director of vocal studies at the Curtis Institute, to cancel a long-planned afternoon recital at the school on February 16.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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