Just because one can write an opera based on a film, does this necessarily indicate that one should?
I fucking love Renée Fleming.
I was extraordinarily happy Monday evening to encounter Angel Blue and Russell Thomas as Mimi and Rodolfo.
“It’s not easy being green”: especially if you’re the two greatest Italian opera composers.
“Trove Thursday” offers a belated 55th birthday nod to Dmitri Hvorostovsky with a blazing live performance of Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Tsar’s Bride.
From the perspective of current identity politics, Puccini’s Turandot is a disaster of epic proportions.
For my early self-birthday gift “Trove Thursday” offers a Handel-orgy of rarely done works.
New York fans of 17th century Italian vocal music should be rejoicing this month.
Georges Bizet’s Les pêcheurs de perles has been knocking steadily at the door of the standard repertoire now in this country for quite some time.
I suspect that David McVicar’s new production of the Metropolitan Opera’s Norma had its most congenial showing as a totality, specifically in the HD format at the movie theater.
At the center of the Met’s revival of Puccini’s La bohème, one found the rich and layered talent of Angel Blue.
The 55th New York Film Festival presented the world premiere of Susan Froemke’s marvelous new documentary The Opera House in a special one-time-only screening at the Metropolitan Opera.
In Schikaneder’s patriarchal cosmology, darkness is the province of emotional women—not just the erratic fury of the Queen of the Night, but the pathetic supplications of Pamina as well.
Arabella with Wolfgang Sawallisch conducting a prime-time 1980s Munich cast.
Last night was my fourth or fifth wade into the slough of Bartlett Sher’s production of Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann at the Met since its premiere in 2009.
Bellini’s Norma Monday evening didn’t at all improve on the production it was replacing.
Remember the disastrous 2010 Traviata at the Met, “conducted” by Leonard Slatkin?
No amount of scholarly diligence has kept Les contes d’Hoffmann from being the messiest of all standard-repertory messes.
The second half of Warner Classics’ Maria Callas Live Remastered set represents the years 1954 to 1964 in the career of La Divina.
“Trove Thursday” presents a performance from 40 years ago: an inspired Renata Scotto as Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur.
When you attend a performance of Georges Bizet’s Carmen you can never be quite certain which one you’re in for.
You’ve got your “Night in the Museum,”and your “It’s All In Her Head” and your “Pantomimes of Childhood Trauma” and that’s all before halftime.
Aida certainly has its longueurs.
Is this not Puccini’s greatest opera, his most human, least manipulative?
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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