The winter 2014 final run of the Met’s first/only Rusalka production (a new one is scheduled in a few seasons) seemed both a nod to the theater’s past and a hint of its future.
One of opera’s great “what ifs?” is what would young Erich Wolfgang Korngold have contributed to the repertoire had the likes of The Adventures of Robin Hood not beckoned him to Hollywood?
“She sounds the note of deep pathos in both action and song convincingly, and last night won the tribute of tears from many eyes.”
In attempting to get a little bit of everything onto my Mixcloud page, I realized that I inadvertently neglected some essentials: 1) Leyla Gencer 2) La Gioconda.
The reviews for Geraldine Farrar‘s Metropolitan Opera debut (Opening Night of the 1906-1907 season) could almost have been written by her own mother.
Few new operas have received the near-unanimous acclaim that has greeted Written on Skin since its first performance at the 2012 Aix-en-Provence Festival.
I was greatly anticipating Karita Mattila’s recital on Friday in Toronto’s Koerner Hall.
Geraldine Farrar has gone and the Gerry-flappers are disconsolate.
The CD explosion coincided with an enormous increase in interest in HIP (historically informed performance) so now there were lots of commercial recordings of the sort of operas I had turned to pirates to find.
It never occurred to me that each tape had to be individually dubbed or that others, maybe many, many others, might also be ordering tapes at the same time.
Back when I was a good boy, I told my parents that my goal in getting my first job was to earn money for college; however, my real motive was to make my secret wish come true—to be able to consort with “pirates.”
Let’s all listen to the American debut of Ghena Dimitrova in this 1981 performance of Ernani from Dallas.
I have found myself truly bewildered by some of the online reviews of the Glimmerglass production of Verdi’s Macbeth.
You might be surprised, though, when that title turns out to be Show Boat.
The redevelopment that took place at Lincoln Center during Reynold Levy’s tenure as president of Lincoln Center represents a considerable accomplishment.
Richard Strauss’s many one-act operas make excellent concert programs, both for their length (usually under two hours) and the primary place each gives the orchestration, a specialty where Strauss’s brilliance seldom deserted him.
By some quirk of fate, I tend to hear about the deaths of many operatic legends via radio news while out driving.
Saturday evening conductor Will Crutchfield revived Donizetti’s La Favorite—unheard in New York for fifteen years.
Few things in opera are more exciting than a beloved young singer taking on a new role, especially in a new Fach.
Harry Lawrence Freeman’s Voodoo, begun sometime before 1914, was completed and first heard on radio in May, 1928, then staged on Broadway later that year—seven years before Porgy and Bess, please note.
The host of the Metropolitan Opera’s Saturday Afternoon Radio Broadcasts and longtime public radio personality died today of complications from ovarian cancer. She was 58.
I can’t think of another 20th century opera which has grown so fast in popularity so long after its composition than Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk.
Mezzo Rinat Shaham takes a short break from being the world’s busiest Carmen and rehearsing for the theatrical concert “The Sorrows of Young Werther” to dish with your doyenne.
Töt erst sein Weib!” shrieks Anja Kampe as Leonore during the very first moments of Andreas Homoki’s ingenious production of Beethoven’s only opera, Fidelio, at Opernhaus Zürich.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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