Two of the leading postwar Czech sopranos appear together in Janacek’s Kát’a Kabanová when Trove Thursday presents Gabriela Benacková‘s gleaming heroine in her US debut relentlessly persecuted by Nadjezhda Kniplová’s implacable mother-in-law.
Trove Thursday completes its Prévost–trifecta with Puccini’s Manon Lescaut starring Sondra Radvanovsky and (pre-Met) Aleksandrs Antonenko conducted by Riccardo Chailly plus an added Radvanovsky-Puccini bonus: Suor Angelica.
For those of you keeping track at home that’s four substitutions for three roles and the curtain hasn’t even gone up yet.
On a new Opus Arte video, Ermonela Jaho is at the absolute peak of her powers both vocally and interpretively.
It’s time for Plácido Domingo to man up and withdraw from the Met’s 2019-2020 season.
Once again we got a very frustrating performance of Orlando; this time a beautiful and completely coherent production marred by some sub-optimal singing.
La Traviata offered a cast of fresh debutantes and an uncommonly strong musical performance that could hardly be bettered.
Though barely a week old, 2019 has already provided New Yorkers with an essential, breathtaking music drama focusing on two women struggling for their very survival.
BAM brings us a political opera featuring… literal balancing acts.
My mother leaned in and quietly whispered,”Is that Leontyne Price?” to which I replied,”Shhhh!”
Lyric Opera of Chicago opened its 2017-18 season on Saturday evening with a new production of Gluck’s Orphee et Eurydice in the 1774 Paris version.
When you attend a performance of Georges Bizet’s Carmen you can never be quite certain which one you’re in for.
Saturday night the Los Angeles Opera threw itself a party.
Akhnaten, seen at the Los Angeles Opera on November 13 tells the story of the Pharaoh who abandoned traditional Egyptian polytheism.
Sometimes when you find the club that will have you as a member, you do not easily give up your spot.
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.
Hopefully the assignment of Herman Melville’s endless whaling opus Moby-Dick as compulsory reading for High School students is a thing of the past.
LA Opera opened their 30th season with a pairing of two of their most popular productions, both of which were initially staged by filmmakers not unfamiliar with the vagaries of our industry outpost here in Hollywoodland.
James Conlon, Music Director for the LA Opera, often does the pre-game lecture in the huge open space on the second floor lobby of the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion and it’s almost always a standing room only crowd.
Renée Fleming is one of the most polarizing figures to be discussed here on an ongoing basis.
My first experience with John Corigliano’s music was in high school with the ear and mind blowing score he wrote for Ken Russell’s film Altered States.
I never thought I’d see the day when Giuseppe Verdi and Benjamin Britten would battle it out for musical superiority but that’s exactly what happened in Los Angeles this year.
You may remember, gentle readers, that last year about this time Peter Gelb decided to enter into an unholy alliance with Target to benefit their mountainous number of opera loving customers by pre-releasing two Met performances exclusively in their fine emporiums.
Being an opera lover in Los Angeles is a lot like being a Red Sox fan. As hard as they try we never make it to the World Series, let alone the playoffs.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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