Got to get you into my strife
Power struggles, prejudice, feuds and revenge abound in San Francisco at the moment.
Germany
Glorious excess
Despite the ever-increasing media coverage of San Francisco’s “doom loop,” June 2023 will be forever remembered as the time where San Francisco was the opera capital of the United States.
A divided duty
Today’s Chris’s Cache features live recordings of Otello most noteworthy for their Desdemonas: (in chronological order) Teresa Stratas, Julia Varady, Eva Marton and Karita Mattila.
Unexpected Wagneriennes
After attending three Met Lohengrins I’ve gone into Wagner withdrawal waiting for the upcoming Der Fliegende Holländer.
Wagnerienne
Diva November meets Wagner December when Chris’s Cache this week offers Régine Crespin as both Elisabeth in Tannhäuser and Senta in Der Fliegende Holländer via a pair of American pirates from the 1960s.
Approaching Valhalla
Gianandrea Noseda leads seasoned Wagnerians in Andreas Homoki’s stark production of Die Walküre for Zurich Opera.
Thrust into the political spotlight
The Met’s revival of Turandot on Saturday night was surprisingly contentious.
Everyone’s gone to the moon
The Met’s recent Ariadne auf Naxos and Elektra combo left me wanting more and more Richard Strauss, so Trove Thursday offers a complete Capriccio with Jonas Kaufmann (his one-and-only Flamand) and Christopher Maltman vying for Soile Isokoski.
Soaring on multicolored wings
Eleanora Buratto at this fully matured point of her career has a warm, creamy full lyric soprano that has the roundness and sweet warmth of a Freni but can also expand into the spinto power of a Tebaldi.
Unequal tooning
There is sensory overload, and very little humanity.
Quicksilver princess
Trove Thursday remembers Edita Gruberová with live recordings of two of the three operas I heard her perform at the Met: a 1985 Munich La Traviata with Neil Shicoff and Wolfgang Brendel conducted by Carlos Kleiber and an I Puritani from Vienna 1994 featuring two other artists who recently left us too soon: Marcello Giordani and Dmitri Hvorostovsky.
Sachs appeal
Last night’s cast of Die Meistersinger at the Met, dominated by the irascible, unbeatable duo of Michael Volle and Johannes Martin Kränzle as Sachs and Beckmesser, did much to enliven Otto Schenk’s creaky, nearly 30-year-old production.
Listening to Bernard Haitink
In the month and a half leading to Bernard Haitink’s passing on October 21, my AirPods constantly channeled a musical festival of sorts centered on the Dutch giant’s expansive discography.
Do you believe in magic?
Remember that time you went to the opera and the whole evening was like magic? Saturday night at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion probably ranks among my greatest nights in the theater and I’m finding the superlatives in my thesaurus inadequate to the task.
The big cube
Ludwig van Beethoven’s “rescue opera” Fidelio was presented by San Francisco Opera as their first new production of the season last Thursday in reinterpreted fashion.
Letting their hair down
After the break the ladies stepped up their game so much that it elevated the night into legendary status: definitely one for the books!
War! What is it good for?
The crown jewel of this year’s Munich Festival is undoubtedly Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, which opened the Festival on June 29 and will close the Festival with an “Opera for All” screening on July 31.
Stratas in the Sixties
Teresa Stratas turned 83 yesterday and Trove Thursday features one of the recent past’s most interesting yet frustrating artists in two rare broadcasts.
Chapí together
With Lent arriving next week, Trove Thursday throws a “Jeudi Gras” party featuring two delicious zarzuela concerts.
‘Tristan’ minus one
Imagine my surprise then when I discovered a new recording of Tristan und Isolde released by Navona Records, a small label based in New Hampshire that primarily focuses on recitals of chamber music, solo works, and smaller ensemble pieces.
Something close to cultishness
Over the course of 700 pages, Alex Ross exhaustively—and sometimes exhaustingly—examines an impact that began in the Wagner’s own lifetime and continues unbroken today, with references cropping up in contemporary works as different as The Matrix and Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Magic Freyer
I still remember, and some of it quite vividly, what it was like to experience Achim Freyer‘s intense and groundbreaking Ring production all these years later.
To love the language
With most of us dug in for the duration, there’s no better time to tuck into a CD box set of neglected treasures. Not that I needed an excuse, mind you.
Anyone’s daughter
One of the more unfortunate losses from the Met’s closure is its revival of Simon Boccanegra, so Trove Thursday steps up with a 1975 Berlin performnace of Verdi’s dark masterpiece with Ingvar Wixell, Gundula Janowitz, José van Dam and Bruno Prevedi.
I’ll take the fall
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).