Das Süsses Mädel and the Boy from Berlin
Diana Damrau has chosen for her new Erato recital disc Grand Opera 11 high-flying showpieces from ten operas by Giacomo Meyerbeer.
Metropolitan Opera
I won’t dance, don’t ask me
A live Un Ballo in Maschera featuring Jon Vickers, Amy Shuard, Lucia Popp, Shirley Verrett and Peter Glossop.
And one for Goethe!
Due to a small hiccup in scheduling at Casa della Cieca, this week you get two uploads!
Cock of the walk
Zolotoy pyetushok (translated as The Golden Cockerel in English, is best known in these parts as Le Coq d’Or.
The frailty of everything earthly
If everything you see is great, you are either new to opera or chronically easy to please.
Saluting Kurt Moll
“Trove Thursday” pays tribute to the great German bass Kurt Moll
Fifty shades of gold
Anticipation of events like the Metropolitan Opera’s 50th Anniversary bash turns me back into the newly opera-soused kid who begged his parents to let him watch the highlights of the Bing Gala on the family color television.
T’would be a sacrilege to sing at another door
“Did you ever have the feeling that you wanted to go, and then you had the feeling that you wanted to stay?” This soul-searching question is likely running through the mind of Renée Fleming.
Keeping the faith
Going into Washington National Opera’s final presentation of the season, Madama Butterfly, I feared that I might be geisha’d out.
One Handel, one heart
I don’t usually attend a performance of an opera I’ve known well most of my life expecting a revelation.
Yes, we have no Banat
In The Gypsy Baron (Der Zigeunerbaron), currently (through Sunday) enjoying a revival by the Manhattan School of Music Opera Theater, you get Strauss waltzes and patriotic marches.
Crate expectations
Not a few eyebrows arched on social media when L.A. Opera appropriated the hashtag “Fight like a girl” on street level poster adverts all over town for the revival of their 2013 production of Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca.
The song is you
Met audiences might have to wait a very long time for Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.
I lived, if you can call it living, for art
Since no doubt the New York contingent of the cher public are already shuddering in anticipation of a Kristine Opolais Tosca as a “gala” New Year’s Eve treat, La Cieca thought you might enjoy—again, surely too strong a word—a preview of sorts.
Gewitter und Sturm
The wild tempest that whipped and drenched the audience as it exited the Met after Tuesday’s season premiere of Wagner’s Der Fliegende Holländer mirrored the finer features of the evening.
Mitigated Gaul
Kevin Newbury‘s familiar production of Bellini’s Norma with its most frequent leading lady, the American Sondra Radvanovsky.
Bells are ringing
Lakmé, stars Ruth Welting, Alfredo Kraus, and Paul Plishka, conducted by Nicola Rescigno.
Same steppes, different dancers
Is there a more gorgeous male voice before the public today than Peter Mattei’s? Has Anna Netrebko ever sounded better?
Through a glass vaguely
Any production of Der Rosenkavalier that can transform the usually excruciating first half of the third act into a hilarious romp already has my vote.
‘Ja, ja’ land
We leave behind the Vienna of the 1740s, the time of breeches, fans and white wigs.
A “Juive’ for the 21st century
A brilliant production of La Juive like that of Peter Konwitschny generalizes the message that mindless hate does not pay and the mindless mob is always the enemy of civilization.
And in the ‘how’
Our selected Rosenkavalier video overview closes out the 20th-century selections, crosses the millennial mark, and includes the first of our performances to depart from the opera’s prescribed 18th-century setting.
Mister Fabulous, that’s you
Mr. Fabiano proceeded to pour gasoline over the audience and toss a lit match into the crowd with his rendition of “Granada.”
Da drin ist die silberne Ros’n
A week from tonight the Met premieres an eagerly anticipated new Der Rosenkavalier, its first in nearly 50 years—probably to the dismay of many grown used to the venerable Nathaniel Merrill–Robert O’Hearn production. As a preview “Trove Thursday” offers a live broadcast of Richard Strauss’s most popular opera with a delicious cast headed by Régine […]
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).