Why so seria?
At the Metropolitan Opera on Saturday night, Mozart’s opera never sounded fresher, a superstar cast shining new light on one of the composer’s all-too-seldom-performed scores.
Metropolitan Opera
Out of the shadows
“Trove Thursday” offers Die Frau ohne Schatten conducted by Georg Solti and also featuring Regina Resnik, Donald McIntyre and the inevitable James King.
Oh my goddess!
Die Walküre crystallizes the cycle’s questions, ideas, and stakes.
The quality of mercy
“Trove Thursday” offers Mozart’s late opera seria in a Paris “pirate” featuring the high-voltage diva-duo of Anna Caterina Antonacci and Elina Garanca.
Give me a ‘Ring’ sometime
On this day in 1975 the Metropolitan Opera completed its first integral Ring cycle since 1962.
Jump for my love
Soprano Iulia Isaev proved to be in just about every way a lovely Tosca.
Things to come
On this day in 1977 Alban Berg’s Lulu premiered at the Metropolitan Opera.
Everybody dance now
Austin McCormack‘s lascivious choreography outshone a tepid and tedious staging of Saint-Saëns’s old-testament epic.
Down Argentine way
“Trove Thursday” drafts a 1960s All-Star team for Verdi’s Il Trovatore broadcast from the Teatro Colón.
Turning over an old leaf
Is there any opera that can take more of a beating while still making an impact than Eugene Onegin?
Lend me a druid
With four hours’ notice and no stage rehearsal, soprano Marisa Galvany went on, making her Met debut as Norma.
Domino theory
The Metropolitan Opera delivers on the promise of Wagner’s Gesamtkunswerk in a revival of Robert Lepage’s Ring.
Cryptic
Hearing Lucas Meachem perform Kindertotenlieder in the crypt of Harlem’s Church of the Intercession was a heart-warming, and ultimately uplifting experience.
Once in love with Amy
“Trove Thursday” leaps to the end of the cycle with a slightly abridged Götterdämmerung featuring Amy Shuard as Brünnhilde.
Tone police
Sixty years ago today, Berg’s Wozzeck was first performed at the Metropolitan Opera.
Cri du coeur
Sondra Radvanovsky returned for her 29th Met Aïda Thursday night (but only her second Aïda.)
Thousands cheer
Although Gustav Mahler never wrote an opera, his colossal Eighth Symphony “The Symphony of a Thousand” may give us some glimpses of what a Mahler opera might have sounded like
Disappearing act
Tenor Matthew Polenzani and pianist Julius Drake’s performance left this listener in a a state of euphoria.
Let’s hear it for the boa
What happens in Karlsruhe stays in Karlsruhe!
Kitchen confidential
Since 1985, from the Chicago Symphony at Carnegie Hall to the Welsh National Opera visiting BAM and from Chicago Lyric to New York City Opera to the Met, I’ve never encountered a bad Falstaff—or one that didn’t astound and delight me.
A view to a kill
You’d want to expect that every Met retread would draw the same curiosity, the same large crowds, to Lincoln Center.
Wintertime, and the living is easy
Porgy and Bess, George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward’s 1935 “folk” opera, graced the stage of Dutch National Opera for the first time last month, and it was resounding success from start to finish.
Dames
A double-barreled “Trove Thursday” birthday salute to Renée Fleming who turns 60 today.
Sex and Vivaldi
The “Red Priest” of Venice once made reference to his “94 operas” in a letter to his patron.
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).