Patrice Munsel 1925-2016
The soprano, famed for her status youngest performer to make a debut at the Met as well as her flamboyant style and personality, died last Thursday after suffering a stroke.
East Coast
With honor
Puccini’s Madama Butterfly with an unexpected heroine: the electrifying Julia Varady, seduced and abandoned by the suavely ardent Giacomo Aragall.
Wer ein solches Weib errungen
Opera at Caramoor rallied Sunday afternoon with an admirable if erratic performance of Fidelio which was especially memorable for South African soprano Elza van den Heever’s thrilling first-ever Leonore.
To each word a warbling note
“What fools these mortals be!”
A very little night music
The unevenly-beating Heart unfortunately proved less than the sum of its deluxe parts.
Festive days
There has been a conspicuous absence of chat on Parterre about this year’s Bayreuther Festspiele.
When the sun comes out
This year as part of Bard’s “Puccini and His World” festival audiences may witness the resurrection of Mascagni’s distinctly odd Iris.
“Troppo” notte
Thanks to the generosity of a parterre reader, “Trove Thursday” presents a rare recording from the famed Carnegie Hall series curated by Matthew Epstein to commemorate Handel’s tercentenary.
Woman behind bars
“Trove Thursday” presentsFerdinando Paër’s 1804 Leonora ossia L’Amore coniugale.
Biblical sense
Shirley Verrett remains one of my all-time favorite artists, and I am pleased to introduce her to my Mixcloud site in one of her parade roles: the femme fatale in Saint-Saëns’ Samson et Dalila.
Neighbors
If you were in New York on July 7, 1975 chances are you were at the Met reveling in the visiting Bolshoi Opera’s Eugene Onegin.
All shook up
Subtitled by its creators as “A Fearful Radio Show,” this opera reminded Jerome Robbins of Orson Welles’ 1938 broadcast of War of the Worlds.
Sunset, Sunrise
This Sunday marks the 10th anniversary of the death of Lorraine Hunt Lieberson from breast cancer.
No saints in two acts
The cast of Wiener Staatsoper’s first-ever performance of Lulu in 1968 reads like a Who’s Who of then-contemporary Austro-German opera: the 28-year-old Anja Silja, Martha Mödl, Waldemar Kmentt, Hans Hotter, Hilde Konetzni, Manfred Jungwirth, Heinz Zednik, and Karl Böhm presiding over a production by Otto Schenk.
Jersey shore
You don’t often hear the grand operas of Benjamin Britten on smaller stages.
Bleeding love
I have always wanted to see a production of Strauss’ Elektra that made my ears bleed.
Nostra e del ciel è gloria
It’s time to add more legends to my Mixcloud site: Mario Del Monaco, Raina Kabaivanska, and Tito Gobbi star in this 1962 performance of Otello from Covent Garden led by Georg Solti.
Home brew
An extraordinarily rich variety of opera happens locally, under the umbrella of New York Opera Fest.
Four faints in five acts
That little place just two hours from the city is on the list of things I shall never understand, like the plot of Parsifal.
Montag mit Marguerite
Berlioz apparently couldn’t decide if his was an oratorio or an opera, so he labeled it a “légende dramatique.” Since its 1846 Paris premiere, it remains on both opera stages and in concert halls, with its first Met staging in 1906.
Sierra grande
I realized I hadn’t yet posted anything featuring one of the “Queens of the Bootlegs,” so I now correcting that with Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West starring the great Magda Olivero as Minnie.
Old school
This week, I offer you a classic rendition of Richard Strauss’ tale of the House of Atreus starring Ursula Schröder-Feinen, Astrid Varnay, Leonie Rysanek, Theo Adam, and Hans Hopf under Karl Böhm’s direction.
Je ne suis pas précis ici
If you’ve been following the coverage of the Nézet-Séguin succession, you will note that a good deal of the coverage centers on whether the incoming maestro will “champion” this composer or that.
Think pink
LoftOpera offered an unusually satisfying, immensely entertaining production of Rossini’s scintillating portrait of an inveterate seducer.
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).