Live recordings of Hans Knappertsbusch conducting Parsifal seem to proliferate like stairways in M.C. Escher prints.
t’s with great joy that I am able to give you Carmen, sung in Italian, from La Scala in 1931. I love this kind of stuff.
A woman reads from the Bible. There is a dance scene in a tavern. The discovery of blood gives away the protagonist.
A “lone voice in the wilderness” booed Barbara Frittoli’s calamitous Nedda.
On his 86th birthday last month, the great Austrian conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt announced his retirement.
The Canadian Robert Carsen would appear to love the theater to the point of fixation.
Gather around while I play Ghost of New Year’s Eve past!
Trove Thursday looks forward to spring via Haydn’s beguiling oratorio Die Jahreszeiten (The Seasons) in a splendid rendition from the 1981 Salzburg Festival with Ileana Cotrubas, Francisco Araiza and José van Dam, James Levine conducting.
Pierre Boulez continuously challenged me and totally changed the way I listen to music.
The Hänsel und Gretel discussions over the holidays plunged me down a YouTube rabbit hole.
Maria Agresta‘s delicately-acted, sumptuously-sung seamstress transformed what might have been just an average Wednesday night revival into something finer.
It would be generous to say that history comes alive on the operatic stage.
A much-loved diva overdue for this site is Anna Moffo.
Enthusiasm is contagious–you have to cover up carefully lest it make you sick.
Das Rheingold is the outlier among the Ring operas, an ensemble work with a fast-shifting plot, animated dialogue, fewer set pieces and less character development.
The most recent Egyptian voluptuary of 2006 by our friend Franco has now been replaced by the most singularly spartan production of Verdi’s masterpiece I think I’ve ever seen.
Giacomo Puccini’s final opus interruptus is and shall always remain my favorite opera. The reasons for this preference are so varied and numerous that if they were printed and bound the volume would most assuredly require its own stand.
I think my love/hate relationship with Händel stems from the fact that during my early days as an operagoer there simply wasn’t any to hear.
Since its founding 20 years ago, Washington, DC-based Opera Lafayette has devoted its considerable imagination and energy to reviving lesser-known 17th and 18th century French operas.
For her third solo recording, Olga Peretyatko summons the two men who launched her career less than a decade ago
On Thursday evening Jennifer Wilson “finally” made a belated, disappointing Met debut as Turandot.
William Christie’s Les Arts Florissants made a much-anticipated appearance at Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival Saturday performing Theodora.
Whatever happened to Stefania Bonfadelli?
Several prima donnas have ought to resurrect La Vestale, including Renata Scotto, whose priestess highlights this week’s “Trove Thursday.”
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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