Shirley Verrett remains one of my all-time favorite artists, and I am pleased to introduce her to my Mixcloud site in one of her parade roles: the femme fatale in Saint-Saëns’ Samson et Dalila.
If you were in New York on July 7, 1975 chances are you were at the Met reveling in the visiting Bolshoi Opera’s Eugene Onegin.
This Sunday marks the 10th anniversary of the death of Lorraine Hunt Lieberson from breast cancer.
The cast of Wiener Staatsoper’s first-ever performance of Lulu in 1968 reads like a Who’s Who of then-contemporary Austro-German opera: the 28-year-old Anja Silja, Martha Mödl, Waldemar Kmentt, Hans Hotter, Hilde Konetzni, Manfred Jungwirth, Heinz Zednik, and Karl Böhm presiding over a production by Otto Schenk.
You don’t often hear the grand operas of Benjamin Britten on smaller stages.
I have always wanted to see a production of Strauss’ Elektra that made my ears bleed.
It’s time to add more legends to my Mixcloud site: Mario Del Monaco, Raina Kabaivanska, and Tito Gobbi star in this 1962 performance of Otello from Covent Garden led by Georg Solti.
An extraordinarily rich variety of opera happens locally, under the umbrella of New York Opera Fest.
That little place just two hours from the city is on the list of things I shall never understand, like the plot of Parsifal.
Berlioz apparently couldn’t decide if his was an oratorio or an opera, so he labeled it a “légende dramatique.” Since its 1846 Paris premiere, it remains on both opera stages and in concert halls, with its first Met staging in 1906.
I realized I hadn’t yet posted anything featuring one of the “Queens of the Bootlegs,” so I now correcting that with Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West starring the great Magda Olivero as Minnie.
This week, I offer you a classic rendition of Richard Strauss’ tale of the House of Atreus starring Ursula Schröder-Feinen, Astrid Varnay, Leonie Rysanek, Theo Adam, and Hans Hopf under Karl Böhm’s direction.
If you’ve been following the coverage of the Nézet-Séguin succession, you will note that a good deal of the coverage centers on whether the incoming maestro will “champion” this composer or that.
LoftOpera offered an unusually satisfying, immensely entertaining production of Rossini’s scintillating portrait of an inveterate seducer.
When Neil Shicoff celebrated the 40th anniversary of his 1975 stage debut as Ernani in Cincinnati, no one had any idea that it would, essentially, mark the end of his career. In 2014 he added the roles of Canio (at Wiener Staatsoper) and Calaf (at Volksoper Wien) to his repertoire to great acclaim.
I can scarcely remember a performance where so many conflicting thoughts raced through my mind as happened Thursday night during the Met Orchestra’s “bleeding chunks” of Wagner’s Ring at Carnegie Hall.
“Has anyone ever seen a truly great production of this opera?”
Sunday afternoon’s all-Richard Strauss concert served as a de facto commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the debut of Renée Fleming, long one of the house’s biggest stars.
“Trove Thursday” presents Sena Jurinac‘s radiant portrayal of Janacek’s Jenufa opposite the implacable Kostelnicka of Martha Mödl.
Regina Opera almost completely fulfilled its mission Saturday afternoon with their production of Manon Lescaut.
Too often I allow my memories of great singers to be dulled by late career behavior, delving into unsuitable roles or just plain laziness.
What we really need, some seem to believe, is fuller representation of the 19th century.
While D.C. Wagnerians wait for Nina Stemme’s Brünnhilde to arrive next week, “Trove Thursday” presents the erstwhile Valkyrie of another compelling diva: Anna Caterina Antonacci as Brunehild, the heroine of Ernest Reyer’s Sigurd, a French grand opera also based on the Nibelungenlied.
Washington National Opera followed up Monday’s lavishly praised Die Walküre with a Siegfried that, if not quite rising to the summit of the previous installment, delivered a musically committed and eminently watchable version of this complicated work.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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