Like Orest, I return to this house.
Jonny spielt auf, the second opera by 26-year-old composer Ernest K?enek, was such a huge success after its 1927 Leipzig premiere that in the following season it was performed 491 times in Germany alone.
How Verdi’s opera might address this particular nightmare was unclear.
Mariusz Trelinski unveiled a rather gloomy, though musically satisfying, Tristan und Isolde.
The Teatro di San Carlo in Naples is a pearl itself and this presentation proffers some of the best that company has to offer.
Now we have considered the three “winners” in the Tristan competition, let’s turn to the also-rans, or, to be more optimistic, the runners up.
“Never in my life having enjoyed the true happiness of love I shall erect a memorial to this loveliest of all dreams…”
Your alte Jungfer’s requisite Kuschelkatze (pictured) arrived on my doorstep in Mariahilf with the name of Tristan.
Just 85 years ago, four of Italy’s greatest opera stars gathered at Teatro all Scala for an historic event: the first-ever recording of Arrigo Boito’s sole complete opera, Mefistofele.
Anna Netrebko‘s artistry is both subtle and thrilling.
Idomeneo proved enormously moving while a much more complicated Così fan Tutte went for shallow romantic hijinks stripping that work of its darkly ambiguous disturbing view of love.
Falstaff, Verdi’s totally unexpected, final, great comedic roar.
I was hopeful that my next operatic engagement would offer greater rewards: Norma at the Edinburgh Festival.
I am happy to finally add Les contes d’Hoffmann to the playlist in a Salzburg performance from 2003 with Neil Shicoff in one of his parade roles.
“Trove Thursday” offers a Der Fliegende Holländer from New York City Opera featuring the underrated American soprano Johanna Meier.
The soprano, famed for her status youngest performer to make a debut at the Met as well as her flamboyant style and personality, died last Thursday after suffering a stroke.
Puccini’s Madama Butterfly with an unexpected heroine: the electrifying Julia Varady, seduced and abandoned by the suavely ardent Giacomo Aragall.
Opera at Caramoor rallied Sunday afternoon with an admirable if erratic performance of Fidelio which was especially memorable for South African soprano Elza van den Heever’s thrilling first-ever Leonore.
“What fools these mortals be!”
The unevenly-beating Heart unfortunately proved less than the sum of its deluxe parts.
There has been a conspicuous absence of chat on Parterre about this year’s Bayreuther Festspiele.
This year as part of Bard’s “Puccini and His World” festival audiences may witness the resurrection of Mascagni’s distinctly odd Iris.
Thanks to the generosity of a parterre reader, “Trove Thursday” presents a rare recording from the famed Carnegie Hall series curated by Matthew Epstein to commemorate Handel’s tercentenary.
“Trove Thursday” presentsFerdinando Paër’s 1804 Leonora ossia L’Amore coniugale.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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