Meeting Rigoletto
I have a confession to make. I have been taking Rigoletto for granted.
East Coast
Talking to John Raitt, Part One
How did you first grow interested in singing?
Bigger than usual
Philadelphia’s Academy of Vocal Arts, a top-tier advanced training program for singers launching professional careers, always sends off their artists in style.
Too much, too soon
Heartbeat is, after all, a company that loves to tinker.
Pretty little lyres
While one sympathized with Matthew Aucoin’s urge to add his voice to the Orpheus canon it was difficult to figure out how his work complemented Gluck’s.
Prodigy
Maria Callas’s most outstanding Adalgisa, out of all she partnered with, was Fiorenza Cossotto.
Medium, cool
Kurt Weill & Bertolt Brecht’s Mahagonny Singspiel, and Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Medium—are not only combined, but configured to overlap in sometimes revealing, occasionally confounding ways.
Sondra castle
By the end of the first act, it was clear to me that I was experiencing an artist performing at her absolute peak.
Come what May
At “Trove Thursday” it’s May Night, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s 1880 comic opera, in a recent broadcast from Moscow led by pianist-conductor Mikhail Pletnev.
Twist of fate
The Verdi Chorus celebrated their 35th anniversary with their spring concert weekend entitled The Force of Destiny last Saturday night and Sunday afternoon.
The finale countdown
Our Own JJ catches up with the tail end of the Met season.
Thank you for smoking
How do you like your Carmen? Mezzo or soprano? Flirtatious? Confrontational? Smolderingly sexy?
Madness on the moors!
The new cast at the Met suggested an alliterative retitling of Lucia di Lammermoor was needed—perhaps Lost Loonies in Love or its Italian equivalent?
Songs of disappointment
b>Lawrence Brownlee, star tenor of stage and NFL games is a real “pillar of the community.”
The queen’s throat
“Trove Thursday ” presents Heinrich Marschner’s Hans Heiling in a 2001 performance from Berlin featuring Alessandra Marc as the title character’s mom, the Queen of the Elves.
Speaking ill of the dead
Plácido Domingo’s conducting reduced the score’s urgency to the lethargy of a jellyfish.
Burnished bass
I clearly remember the day I first heard the voice of Cesare Siepi.
Quantum leap
Like Julius Caesar before her, Anna Netrebko can rightly proclaim “Veni vidi vici” about her decisive Roman victory at the Metropolitan Opera where she took on her first-ever Tosca.
Panglossed over
Celebrating Lenny’s 100th this year has made Candide ubiquitous at opera houses worldwide.
Season of the Witch
Trove Thursday offers a pair of live broadcasts of Médée featuring two compelling mid-20th century divas—Inge Borkh in German and Eileen Farrell in Italian.
Tragically Hippolyte
I had my head in my hands groaning in disbelief instead of joining in the general applause around me.
I want magic
Why, only now, Cendrillon is having its premiere at the Met is a puzzling question.
They live by night
A heady audience paid top price to pack Carnegie Hall Thursday for just 80 minutes of unstaged Wagner.
The trouble with Norma
If one looks at trends in the last 40 or so years, the most successful Normas are mainly those who’ve made not just bel canto, but Bellini as a mainstay in their repertoire.
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).