What must have raced through the mind of the none-too-comely Spanish Infanta when she learned that the opera to be performed during the celebrations for her 1745 wedding to the French Dauphin revolved around the comeuppance of an ugly yet vain water nymph tricked into believing Jupiter was her ardent suitor?
La bohème is such a popular romantic opera that hardly anyone ever notices that Mimì and Rodolfo undergo what in modern terms would be called speed dating.
Short answer: yes. But let’s begin by dismissing the a blatant canard. One thing that the Metropolitan Opera does not need to do is to scale back the number of performances in a season.
When Norman Lebrecht is declaring on an almost daily basis that classical music is dead, it’s perhaps heartening that four of today’s prominent tenors have recently released what might be called fluff/vanity albums.
For one week every two years since 1981 the eyes—and ears—of those interested in period performance turn to the Boston Early Music Festival, particularly to its opera centerpiece, but that organization doesn’t rest on its laurels in between festivals.
The Met’s financial challenges are not meteorological, demographic, or cyclical; they are structural.
The hostile reaction to the Mary Zimmerman production of La sonnambula was well documented after the premiere in 2009.
Midway through the first portion of this past Wednesday’s New York City recital debut of Mme. Natalie Dessay I became very distracted by the persistent urge to try to characterize the experience of what was happening on stage, for this was, by no means, an ordinary recital and no ordinary debutante.
This afternoon at the Met, Grigolo sold his performance like the rent was due tomorrow and he was down to his last penny.
It’s been a bitterly cold winter in NY. When it’s bitterly cold, the air is dry.
We must be doubly grateful that The English Concert’s recent Theodora was so quickly followed by the American Classical Orchestra’s fine Samson on Tuesday evening at Alice Tully Hall.
parterre box has obtained a memo sent to artists’ managers in which AGMA Executive Director Alan Gordon warns singers contracted to sing at the Met in the 2014-2105 season that due to unpromising developments in upcoming labor negotiations the company may be dark for part or all of the season.
I am grateful to Sony for this new release
of the Metropolitan Opera’s latest production of Parsifal and I hope I’m not the only one who discovers what a rich experience this opera can be because of it.
Andris Nelsons led the Vienna Philharmonic in a performance of Salome that provided just the sort of thing one hopes for in a concert performance of an overflowingly rich operatic score.
My impossible wish would be to hear one of the great castrati who dominated opera for most of the 18th century.
Life is not fair. There are rules that apply to Jonas Kaufmann, and rules that apply to everyone else.
Our Own Jungfer Marianne Leitmetzerin (not pictured) takes us back to the turbulent 1970s at the Met for the spectacular company debut of electrifying Elena Obraztsova as Amneris.
When Winston Churchill was First Sea Lord, the story goes, an indignant admiral accused him of violating British naval tradition, to which Churchill replied that the only traditions of the British Navy were rum, sodomy and the lash.
Joined by the Choir of Trinity Wall Street, The English Concert concluded the US leg of its current tour at Carnegie Hall Sunday with a complete performance of the darkly moving Theodora, Handel’s penultimate oratorio.
Well, “extreme” is such an, oh, how shall I put it… extreme word, my dears; really La Cieca is no more than the humble intermediary here between Mike Richter‘s CD-ROMs and you, the cher public. This time our treat from the trove is Eugene Onegin, a selection from his disc devoted to the Metropolitan Opera […]
While many performing arts organizations have been reducing their schedules or even closing, Opera Lafayette, a Washington DC-based group dedicated primarily to 17th and 18th century opera, has proven remarkably prosperous.
The legend of the mermaid is ancient, and recently scientists have theorized that these legends might have arisen when humans encountered marine mammals such as whales, seals, or sea lions.
The experience of watching Wagner’s final opera Parsifal is frequently elevated to a spiritual occurrence, and productions have historically emphasized the religious dimension of the opera’s core themes of redemption and the dangers of temptation.
Each year, Leon Botstein leads the American Symphony Orchestra in a concert opera or two.
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).
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