Songs of disappointment
b>Lawrence Brownlee, star tenor of stage and NFL games is a real “pillar of the community.”
Metropolitan Opera
The queen’s throat
“Trove Thursday ” presents Heinrich Marschner’s Hans Heiling in a 2001 performance from Berlin featuring Alessandra Marc as the title character’s mom, the Queen of the Elves.
Speaking ill of the dead
Plácido Domingo’s conducting reduced the score’s urgency to the lethargy of a jellyfish.
Burnished bass
I clearly remember the day I first heard the voice of Cesare Siepi.
Quantum leap
Like Julius Caesar before her, Anna Netrebko can rightly proclaim “Veni vidi vici” about her decisive Roman victory at the Metropolitan Opera where she took on her first-ever Tosca.
Season of the Witch
Trove Thursday offers a pair of live broadcasts of Médée featuring two compelling mid-20th century divas—Inge Borkh in German and Eileen Farrell in Italian.
Tragically Hippolyte
I had my head in my hands groaning in disbelief instead of joining in the general applause around me.
I want magic
Why, only now, Cendrillon is having its premiere at the Met is a puzzling question.
They live by night
A heady audience paid top price to pack Carnegie Hall Thursday for just 80 minutes of unstaged Wagner.
The trouble with Norma
If one looks at trends in the last 40 or so years, the most successful Normas are mainly those who’ve made not just bel canto, but Bellini as a mainstay in their repertoire.
You’ve got to climb Mount Everest
On this day in 1975 soprano Beverly Sills made her official Metropolitan Opera debut as Pamira in L’assedio di Corinto.
Bell de jour
Next week the Italian soprano Mariella Devia celebrates her 70th birthday so “Trove Thursday” salutes her with one of her earliest New York successes: Delibes’s Lakmé
Cabal me by your name
It’s fortunate that the Met’s production of Luisa Miller featured the incomparable Piotr Beczala in the role of Rodolfo.
The best of everything
Munich’s Bayerische Staatsoper’s victory lap at Carnegie Hall concluded Thursday night with a sumptuous Der Rosenkavalier spectacularly conducted by Kirill Petrenko
Testament of youth
“Trove Thursday” offers a vernal take on Massenet’s magical Cendrillon (in English) featuring two sopranos: Margaret Price—not yet 30—and Anne Pashley, then just 35.
Less than hero
Iestyn Davies’s theatrical blandness combined with his vocal unsuitability for the role left a hole at the center of Rinaldo.
Italian dressing
Lucia di Lammermoor, a bloody story of a young woman’s mental degeneracy amidst feuding families, remains Donizetti’s most popular exploration of the landscape and culture of Britain.
Frau Minne
“Trove Thursday” presents a live Tristan 2 concert featuring one of my favorite dramatic sopranos. Gertrude Grob-Prandl.
MIsfit
On this day in 1977 Alban Berg‘s Lulu premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in the as-yet incomplete two act version.
The help
As Despina in the Metropolitan Opera’s new production of Così fan tutte, Kelli O’Hara injects much needed vitality into an otherwise lethargic evening.
Love me or leaf me
On this day in 1997 Robert Carsen made his Met debut with a new production of Eugene Onegin.
Einspring forward
On this day in 1979 soprano Marisa Galvany made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Norma, replacing Shirley Verrett with only four hours notice.
The girl next door
>Verdi’s marvelous yet neglected Luisa Miller finally returns to the Met later this month after an absence of a dozen years so “Trove Thursday” provides a preview.
The mania event
Christine Goerke‘s puzzling high register has become an increasingly troubling aspect of her singing. One just never knew what was going to come out from one moment to the next.
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).