Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov must be Russian’s most iconic opera and “Trove Thursday” presents it with Claudio Abbado leading an impressive team.
Tuesday the Met unveils its sixth new production of La Traviata since moving to Lincoln Center.
“The heavens are telling” begins the famous chorus that ends the first section of The Creation.
To heck with Bayreuth and Salzburg, Glimmerglass and Santa Fe as Rosa Feola sang Mozart at Lincoln Center Friday night and I wouldn’t have been anywhere else!
The old adage “the third time’s the charm” proved to be the case with me and Daphne, Richard Strauss’s ravishing bukolische Tragödie, when I recently heard it performed by Franz Welser-Möst and the Cleveland Orchestra.
I had my head in my hands groaning in disbelief instead of joining in the general applause around me.
It was already nearly two o’clock in the morning, late for a work night, and Nixon Ben Mahmoud was ashamed to find himself crying real tears.
One of the greats of classical music, Franz Joseph Haydn was a bit of an “also-ran” as an opera composer.
Awaiting the return of Parsifal to the Met, “Trove Thursday” hops to the other end of Wagner’s oeuvre with a recent Rienzi der letzte der Tribunen.
J.S. Bach doesn’t get a lot of attention on this site although he wrote tons of vocal music.
Usually the longer I know a work the more I look forward to rediscovering it, but that’s just not the case with the Verdi Requiem.
Washington National Opera continued a focus on recent works this season with Terence Blanchard and Michael Cristofer’s 2013 opera Champion on the life of boxer Emile Griffith.
Friday night Music Director James Conlon sold Die Entfürhung aus dem Serial to a tony crowd of Angelenos.
Verdi’s Macbeth gets true blood-and-guts treatment from Guillermo Sarabia and the legendary Marisa Galvany.
“Trove Thursday” offers a Der Fliegende Holländer from New York City Opera featuring the underrated American soprano Johanna Meier.
This Sunday marks the 10th anniversary of the death of Lorraine Hunt Lieberson from breast cancer.
Anna Moffo made some of the most entrancing records ever. Their appeal is to “voice fanciers.” (I understand. We’re a despised group.) But Moffo’s best work renders us helpless.
One Saturday afternoon during my freshman year in college, Richard Strauss’s Elektra made me fall in love with Ursula Schröder-Feinen—or maybe vice versa.
Richard Strauss’s many one-act operas make excellent concert programs, both for their length (usually under two hours) and the primary place each gives the orchestration, a specialty where Strauss’s brilliance seldom deserted him.
Although she began her career nearly 25 years ago recording and performing lots of baroque music, I was surprised to see German soprano Dorothea Röschmann promoted as the star attraction of an all-Purcell concert Sunday at Carnegie Hall.
The last day of December a parcel arrived in the mail containing an absolute delight: “Semiramide—La Signora Regale.” One of best vocal recordings of 2014, this sumptuous 2-CD set on Deutsche Harmonia Mundi features the marvelous Italian mezzo-soprano Anna Bonitatibus and includes 90 minutes of rarely-heard music written for the legendary Babylonian queen.
My first experience with John Corigliano’s music was in high school with the ear and mind blowing score he wrote for Ken Russell’s film Altered States.
Something a little out of the ordinary from Jungfer Marianne Leitmetzerin this week: David Del Tredici‘s Final Alice, featuring the “original cast.”
“With radiant looks, we shall depart this world,” sing Konstanze and Belmonte near the end of Mozart’s exotic yet charming opera Singspiel Die Entführung aus dem Serail.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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