On Wednesday, the still-active, still radiant Virginia Zeani turns 90.
This “new-to-Chicago” production is a sheer pleasure from beginning to end.
Although the season is less than three weeks old, Metropolitan Opera audiences may hear nothing else this season as beautiful as Peter Mattei’s “Song to the Evening Star.”
Which operatic character could be best described as a spider?
For all their orchestral and vocal attractions, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s 15 operas are rarities in the West.
I guess you have spoken: “Bring us insane divas in operas we already know!”
Would exciting American dramatic soprano Christine Goerke be the next great ice-princess we have been waiting for?
It took me years to appreciate the serious Donizetti, but I’ve always loved the composer’s comic operas, particularly Don Pasquale and Elisir.
There is a simple elegance to the single-composer recital album format. For the listener in the mood for, say, Puccini, it’s a chance to delve into his music without any pesky interruptions by those other guys like Verdi or Massenet. And if one is also in the mood for a particular singer’s art, then the…
Enthusiasts of Janácek’s opera will want to pick up this video immediately.
I’m beginning this new series of “pirate-casts” with a great opera: Berlioz’s Les Troyens featuring the luminous pairing of Janet Baker and Jon Vickers as Didon and Énée.
The production by Sebastian Baumgarten is the type of regietheater that’s not a rethinking or reconstruction, but just a hot mess.
Since the 1916 version of Ariadne auf Naxos which we all know and love had its premiere at Wiener Staatsoper, it seems most appropriate to bring you this 1967 performance from the same venue, with a legendary cast at its zenith.
Anja Silja staked a claim as a leading Senta of her era with a series of searing performances of Der Fliegende Holländer while in her early twenties.
I was greatly anticipating Karita Mattila’s recital on Friday in Toronto’s Koerner Hall.
When LaCieca asked me to choose my favorite live recording, I had to think… and think.
Many live treasures (and some duds) began to take up more and more space—first in my dorm room, then in my first little studio apartment thanks to a group of quite special men, none of whom I ever met face to face.
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.”
Piotr Beczala, Soile Isokoski and Kwangchul Youn star in this 2009 performance of Faust from the Wiener Staatsoper, idiomatically conducted by Bertrand de Billy.
Another month, another La Traviata release on video.
Bohuslav Martinu’s The Greek Passion has had a rough life.
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.
I was once accused—by my own mother, mind you!—of having too many recordings of Verdi’s Aida. The blistering audacity of that recrimination did get me to thinking: How many recordings of Aida is too many? I mean, you’ve got the old classic you cut your teeth on. Then there’s he one where the tenor and…
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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