A springtime baroque bouquet
Christopher Corwin picks the flowers of a baroque May in New York City with reviews of concerts starring Lauren Snouffer, Key’mon Murrah, and the Oratorio Society of New York.
Les Talens Lyriques
Back over the rainbow bridge
“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.
Halle if ya hear me
Bergamo hosts an annual Donizetti festival, Salzburg presents a Mozart-woche every January, and of course there is Bayreuth for Wagner. But Handel gets two festivals every spring, and this year I was finally able to attend one of them.
Myth and meaning
Two short theatrical works and one sacred piece from the beguiling oeuvre of the guy who didn’t write Louise
Judith in disguise
No one who followed Trove Thursday will be surprised that Diva November on Chris’s Cache today features Ann Hallenberg and Sandrine Piau.
Coups de theatre
This month, both the Paris Opéra and the Opéra-Comique are mounting seminal works about unhinged anti-heroines who meet their downfall after falling head-over-heels for an unavailable, deeply unattainable man – Salome, in the case of the Opéra; and Armide, in the case of the Opéra-Comique.
Back to baroque
The always elegant Véronique Gens has recently returned often to her earliest roots in the French baroque.
Green-eyed monster
Last night should have seen my favorite of this season’s revivals but instead Trove Thursday must step up with Jean-Marie Leclair’s irresistibly captivating Scylla et Glaucus conducted by Christophe Rousset.
One goddess, one Hallenberg!
Although I usually pretend that I don’t have the diva-worship gene, sharp-eyed readers of parterre box will know that since I joined the site in 2011 as “DeCaffarrelli” I have often swooned as an Ann Hallenberg-fanboi.
Roman holiday
A brace of Handel operas at the George Enescu International Festival.
The bad and the beautiful
“Trove Thursday” offers Offenbach’s irreverent La Belle Hélène featuring the beauteous Véronique Gens.
Gods and monsters
Legrenzi married the quirky libretto to a score of transcendental beauty.
A spouse tale
A performance of Gluck’s Alceste from Wiener Staatsoper in June 2016.
Farinelli from heaven
My impossible wish would be to hear one of the great castrati who dominated opera for most of the 18th century.
Belief in a higher power
The behavioral phenomenon of limerence has been described as “an involuntary potentially inspiring state of adoration and attachment to a limerent object involving intrusive and obsessive thoughts, feelings and behaviors from euphoria to despair, contingent on perceived emotional reciprocation.”
Empire records
That’s what it must have been like in 1726 London when Handel composed Alessandro for perhaps the three most famous (and expensive) singers of the day.
An embarrassment of divas
As if last week’s survey wasn’t enough, a few more recent diva-recital disks remain worthy of attention particularly since they arrive from five front-rank singers.
Divas merrily on high
Cecilia Bartoli and Joyce DiDonato are not the only ladies who have recorded recitals this year featuring music from the 17th and 18th centuries.
All hell baroque loose
Many American opera-lovers take the “Grand Tour”—a pilgrimage to Europe to attend opera at its great houses—Peter Grimes at the Royal Opera in London or Otello at La Scala in Milan, or perhaps for the more well-heeled a visit to the summer festivals of Glyndebourne, Salzburg or Aix-en-Provence.
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).