Simultaneous transformation
For those who thought opera to be a rare enough commodity that there shouldn’t be duels, Saturday night in the Berkshires offered the odd rebuttal.
Metropolitan Opera
For me and my Gaul
I first went bonkers for Bellini’s masterpiece during the previous century when the Met remounted it for Joan Sutherland.
And the villain still pursued her
Bard College presented a semi-staged concert of Halka on Saturday evening as part of its impressively wide-ranging two-week “Chopin and his World” festival.
The green hills of home
The principal cast members for the week’s Aida are all Wagnerians: Birgit Nilsson, Sándor Kónya, Rita Gorr and Cornell MacNeil.
Three sisters who are not sisters
Due to bandwidth limits “Trove Thursday” must post some more modest offerings in months with five Thursdays.
Woman on the Vergy
“Trove Thursday” offers Gemma di Vergy with the lovely, largely now forgotten Adriana Maliponte in the title role.
Wine coolers are the first thing, morals follow on
Skirting the leafy, patrician Berkshires of Western Mass, and flush with wine coolers and white people, pastoral Tanglewood doesn’t much resemble the dark Nibelung settings of Norse myth.
Deine Divadienste will die Frau
I wish to introduce our younger Parterrians to the magical Martha Mödl to commemorate the opening of the Bayreuther Festspiele which opens tomorrow afternoon.
Drunk in both head and heart
This week’s “Trove Thursday” offers Benjamin Britten’s Death in Venice featuring Anthony Rolfe Johnson.
Tragedy tonight
In May of last year tenor Piotr Beczala and soprano Anna Netrebko sang in Lohengrin for the first time under the baton of Christian Thielemann in his home house at the Staatskapelle Dresden.
Dramatic ARC
Wednesday brought Christopher Alden’s grimly dark and violent take on Handel’s Aci, Galatea e Polifemo at National Sawdust.
Imogenary beings
Will Crutchfield’s Bel Canto at Caramoor program of concert operas concluded with a bang on Saturday with Bellini’s first success, Il Pirata.
‘Mawrdew,’ he wrote
Published in 1975, James McCourt’s novel Mawrdew Czgowchwz is engaged with a longing for the divine.
Iris, hence away
Endlessly extricating her from existing contracts then negotiating new ones must make being Sonya Yoncheva’s manager the hardest job in the music business.
The zoo story
A week from Saturday Will Crutchfield’s “Bel Canto at Caramoor” ends a 20-year run with Il Pirata.
Back to the beach
Now it’s time to grab Albert Einstein for a lengthy swim.
From Hell
In March 1973, OONY’s second season featured Francesca da Rimini starring Raina Kabaivanska, Plácido Domingo and Matteo Manuguerra.
Composer’s intentions
A live broadcast of the prologue to Ariadne auf Naxos featuring Julia Varady, a favorite sopranos in a role she sang only rarely.
Monday in the park with mike
From up close, the miked opera singer can be a bit tough to take.
Let me live by my wits and Trost to my luck
I finally get to complete my personal operatic Top Ten this week with Igor Stravinsky’s only full-length opera, The Rake’s Progress.
And the ‘Angels’ sing
Angels in America reimagined as an actual, full-blown opera.
Intermezzo (a love story)
The glorious and beloved Elisabeth Söderström tackles the fiendishly difficult role of Christine in a 1974 performance from Glyndebourne.
In the River Rhine. In it.
It is always a pleasure to hear a great orchestra take on a major score that might sound half-muffled emerging from the pit of an opera house.
Tomb service
An outstanding performance of Weber’s Euryanthe to share on “Trove Thursday.”
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).