A perfect meeting of voice with composer occurred when Arleen Auger took part in the rediscovery of early works by Mozart.
Following a review by Christopher Corwin, figures from in and around the box react to Pablo Larraín‘s new film Maria
If song recitals by opera stars Piotr Beczala and Asmik Grigorian sometimes came up short, Semyon Bychkov’s powerful rendition of the Glagolitic Mass instantly became one of the year’s highlights.
While everyone tries to figure out what on earth Strauss and Hofmannsthal are up to in Die Frau ohne Schatten, now playing at the Met, Chris’s Cache offers a later, simpler, shorter Strauss with three live broadcasts of his “bucolic tragedy” Daphne.
Patrick Mack reviews yet another Puccini album from Jonas Kaufmann
Christopher Corwin reviews Pablo Larraín‘s Maria
Later this month the Met at last revives its striking Herbert Wernicke production of Die Frau ohne Schatten, prompting a Chris’s Cache preview of three live recordings of Strauss and Hofmannsthal’s fanciful if knotty masterpiece.
In a splashy new recording of Norma, Marina Rebeka “is doing something very untoward, and it appears destructive to her voice.” It has Niel Rishoi worried.
It surprises even me how some operas have eluded me in live performance even after lo, these many years. One of them is Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette.
Washington National Opera rounded out its season opening weekend with a one-night-only performance entitled “Gods & Mortals: A Celebration of Wagner” the evening after the premiere of its new production of Fidelio.
Michael Steinberg on Riccardo Muti, fascism, and who speaks through the collective voice of the Verdi Requiem.
Aside from a tour with the LSO this spring, this was, I believe, the only time Antonio Pappano would be conducting in the US this season. This made the concert at Symphony Hall a real treat.
Happy was I to attend the Celebrity Opera Series presentation Saturday night at BroadStage, mere blocks from my humble abode in Santa Monica as Anglela Gheorghiu was making an eagerly awaited return for the first time since her debut here in 2013.
As for complete recordings of Il trovatore, which was discussed at some length last week, there are at least 200 of them, both studio and live.
Sparks flew when the San Francisco Opera opened their new production of Richard Wagner’s monumental Tristan und Isolde on Saturday, October 19th, at the War Memorial Opera House.
On this day in 1965 soprano Mirella Freni and tenor Gianni Raimondi made their Metropolitan Opera debuts in La bohème
Les Contes d’Hoffmann is something of a puzzle in which some of the pieces are missing and others been altered to fit since Offenbach died before he could complete and revise the work.
My vision may have been slightly blurry at the end.
Overall, this was a superb achievement and a thrilling season opener for the San Francisco Opera.
“Let’s start at the very beginning” of Kent Nagano’s pioneering complete Ring project which was recently discussed here in depth in Montagu James’s review of Die Walküre.
Unlike more surface-level historically informed practice which has become the norm in early music ensembles, this project stands out in its surprisingly deep engagements with the ethical and practical challenges posed by “recreating” Wagner’s sound.
Following Gundula Janowitz and Janet Baker, Chris’s Cache sends birthday greetings to another favorite diva—Karita Matilla—with a quartet of broadcasts.
Only by knowing what went on around the great composers is it possible to truly understand why they are great and why their operas have come down to us (and why dozens of other titles have been left behind).
Dmitri Tcherniakov’s interpretation of Wagner’s Der Fliegende Höllander presents an engrossing character study about Senta and the Dutchman’s struggles against their insular community’s stifling conformism.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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