Just over a month ago the great Catalan soprano Montserrat Caballé died at age 85.
Throughout the evening I couldn’t help thinking that this1870s Biblical epic of erotic obsession and penance was what the Met should have been doing this fall rather than its misbegotten Samson et Dalila.
“Trove Thursday” keeps the evil deeds going this All Saints’s Day with a vintage La Scala broadcast of Arrigo Boito’s only completed opera Mefistofele.
The Hungarian State Opera and Hungarian National Ballet opened their visit to Lincoln Center Tuesday night with the US stage premiere of their “national opera” Bánk Bán.
Niccolò Jommelli, forgotten now, was quite well known in Italy and southern Germany in his day.
Like most directors of this opera this century, David Alden is keen to outline the helplessness of women in the face of 19th century patriarchy.
Sondra Radvanovsky changed my opinion of her through a single performance—I’ll never think of her the same way again; the power of her singing overwhelmed my previous impressions.
“Trove Thursday” offers due local Lombardi: one with Renata Scotto and José Carreras, the other with Aprile Millo and Carlo Bergonzi.
With a program of Schumann, Wagner, Ravel and de Falla, mezzo-soprano Elina Garanca and pianist Kevin Murphy delivered a underdone performance at Carnegie Hall on Tuesday night.
Isn’t it nice to know a lot? And a little bit not.
Those readers who know my musical tastes will not be shocked to find that I have a somewhat conflicted view of Mozart’s operatic works.
I hardly know where to heap my praise first.
The Met is on it with something something woker than woke: a noirish psychodrama of a frigid hysteric who seeks redemption via Freudian analysis!
He returned. He sang. He didn’t get hanged.
“Berlioz Takes a Trip” proclaimed the free psychedelic buttons available at Carnegie Hall Monday referring to Symphonie Fantastique,the evening’s surefire crowd-pleaser.
Venomous fishwife Norman Lebrecht has gleefully seized upon the death of beloved diva Montserrat Caballé to use her scarcely-cold cadaver as a club to attack (who else) Peter Gelb.
Mad Scenes and Exit Arias: The Death of the New York City Opera and the Future of Opera in America provides ample fodder for the legions of amateur opera sleuths seeking to confirm their theory of “Who Killed City Opera?”
As opera’s reigning tenor-superstar, Jonas Kaufmann can pretty much do whatever he wants and a sizable adoring public will lap it up.
It’s surprising to read that, as of this writing, La fanciulla del west has only had 105 performances at the Metropolitan Opera.
Carnegie Hall’s season opener last night fetched the usual glitterati.
The conclusion of our Fanciulla del West video overview in three parts looks at a trio of performances from the 2010s.
Puccini’s Girl closes out the 20th century and gallops into the 21st.
“Are we Team Guelf or Team Ghibelline?”
Opera Philadelphia’s O18 Festival continues through the weekend, but Friday represented a finale of sorts with the last two premieres.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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