Quiet please, there’s a lady on stage
On this day in 2008 Anja Harteros sang her first Metropolitan Opera Violetta.
Metropolitan Opera
A study in simplicity and profundity
“The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays” – Soren Kierkegaard
The clue whose meaning we avoid
We watch Peter Grimes being made into a deviant— a process that can take place through the mechanism of the law, but often happens outside of it through social processes.
This is a gala day for you
On October 14, 1979 I spent my birthday attending my first all-star opera gala, thrilled at the chance to hear some of the great singers I’d only experienced on LPs, broadcasts or via my pirate reel-to-reel tapes.
“So much for traditional sweetness and charm”
On this day in 1998 the Metropolitan Opera presented a new production of Le nozze di Figaro featuring Cecilia Bartoli as Susanna.
Tableau vivant
On this day in 1964 the Metropolitan Opera opened its season with a new production of Lucia di Lammermoor.
Take the long way Rome
David McVicar’s 2017 production of Tosca returned to the Met on Tuesday night, with an able and watchable, if not transcendent cast.
Ocean, thou mighty monster
Michael Spyres’s nobly moving Idomeneo wasn’t just a bravura triumph: singing strongly throughout, he brought more colors to his portrayal of the tortured king than I had experienced from others in the Ponnelle production.
So damn bored
It’s nasty world, Shostakovich seems to say, where life alternates between boring and terrifying.
How do you solve a problem like ‘Medea’?
Sondra Radvanovsky has an unconventional voice that is suited to unconventional characters and is best used in rangy, difficult music. The lack of lush beauty was no deficit in depicting Medea’s jealousy and vengeful rage.
Love me or leaf me
Robert Carsen‘s legendary production of Eugene Onegin finally arrives in San Francisco.
Ceaselessly beautiful
With the phenomenal cast that stacked Paris Opera’s production of I Capuleti e i Montecchi , it was easy to overlook the quirks of Bellini’s opera and get lost in the pleasures of glorious bel canto singing.
Sweet and low: Orlinski’s Orfeo
My impression was of a very fine singer performing a role that was slightly too large for him.
Edita Gruberova enters the 21st century
The worst criticism perhaps was the gleeful Schadenfreude noting Edita’s voice wasn’t as under her command as it used to be.
No heather on the hill: ‘Lucia’ in LA
LA Opera sent out an email warning that the production “contains depictions of blood, violence, and drug use, as well as strobe lights and a gunshot effect in Act III.”
Classic example: ‘Antony’ at SFO
Antony and Cleopatra was an auspicious start to San Francisco Opera’s second century, a performance that seems to improve as I continue to think about it.
Magnificent: Michael Spyres in recital
This tenor must be the finest classical singer in the world today.
NYCO, out(doors) and proud
The New York City Opera has become an elusive “now you see it, now you don’t” presence in the New York opera scene since the departure of main sponsor and chairman of the board Roy G. Niederhoffer in 2019.
I had too much to dream last night
Trove Thursday previews next week’s BBC Proms presentation of Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius with a 2008 broadcast conducted by Colin Davis with Sarah Connolly, Ben Heppner and Gerald Finley.
Sweet home Ithaca
Monteverdi’s late Homeric masterpiece Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria isn’t often performed in the United States.
Nothing to sneeze at
This week’s Trove Thursday—Kodály’s Háry János in a 1955 RAI broadcast in Italian led by famed Hungarian conductor Ferenc Fricsay—may be a bit brief as C-19 finally arrived last week chez CC.
Behold the happy pair
Beverly Sills and Renée Fleming perform 30 years apart the same work with the same orchestra in the same venue!
Angry young men
Since April four wildly varied incarnations of Hamlet have been haunting New York City theaters; the most recent to arrive was Robert Icke’s chicly contemporary take on Shakespeare’s play which opened last week at the Park Avenue Armory.
The Verdi thing
On Thursday June 30th, San Francisco Opera closed their summer season with a one-night-only special concert celebrating Eun Sun Kim’s first season as the Caroline H. Hume Music Director, in an aptly named concert “Eun Sun Kim Conducts Verdi.”
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).