You can imagine my surprise at encountering an almost wholly traditional staging with one teensy difference.
On this day in 1975 Rossini‘s Siege of Corinth had its American stage premiere at the Metropolitan Opera
Arnold Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder and Giacomo Puccini’s Turandot are, in their different ways, the final decadent flowering of a musical tradition at its twilight.
One of the first things James Conlon did when he took over the reins as Music Director of LA Opera was create the “Recovered Voices” project, producing operas that had been suppressed by the Nazis.
Washington Concert Opera’s season opened with a triumphant performance of Gioachino Rossini’s rarely heard Ermione Saturday night at George Washington University in D.C., led by Antony Walker and a stellar quartet of principals in Angela Meade, Lawrence Brownlee, David Portillo, and Ginger Costa-Jackson.
Let’s not forget that it’s only been two years since the Met mounted its first-ever opera by a Black composer.
For Philadelphia opera lovers, October means the Giargiari Bel Canto Competition—a staple event for the Academy of Vocal Arts, and a pipeline for the public to discover some of their strongest resident artists.
Chris’s Cache offers up a quintet of intriguing “forgotten” Leonora-Azucena pairings from the 1970s.
The wicked poisoner showed herself in fine form, full of purple passion and lusty music-making that would gladden the heart of any bel canto enthusiast or opera lover in general.
Eagerly awaiting Met May Mozart Madness, Chris’s Cache presents a starry quintet of the master’s operas not being done next month.
Sweeney Todd is by any measure a triumphant show, the kind that makes an audience understand why Broadway is American theater’s gold standard
Richard Strauss’ “Bucolic Tragedy in One Act” Daphne is one of his most beautiful and most frustrating works.
Frankly I thought Sondra Radvanovsky had reached her pinnacle with her Norma but I was apparently mistaken. I’m happy to say her Turandot is completely next-level.
On this day in 2008 the Metropolitan Opera presented a gala new production of Puccini’s La rondine.
Sondra Radvanovsky has an unconventional voice that is suited to unconventional characters and is best used in rangy, difficult music. The lack of lush beauty was no deficit in depicting Medea’s jealousy and vengeful rage.
Despite the diminishing returns of her vocal means, Edita Gruberova‘s last years of her career were if anything more successful than ever.
The New York City Opera has become an elusive “now you see it, now you don’t” presence in the New York opera scene since the departure of main sponsor and chairman of the board Roy G. Niederhoffer in 2019.
Trove Thursday previews next week’s BBC Proms presentation of Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius with a 2008 broadcast conducted by Colin Davis with Sarah Connolly, Ben Heppner and Gerald Finley.
I wonder why many New Yorkers have been led to believe that the only Handel conductor in the world is Harry Bicket.
Why is so twinkling, tuneful a score so little known?
Born on this day in 1915 singer and songwriter Billie Holiday.
People these days often exclaim “…..is everything!” but often it feels like gross hyperbole. But surely anyone who has seen Mark Morris’s L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato since it premiered in 1989 would agree that it is indeed everything!
Next Wednesday is the composer’s 337th birthday, so Trove Thursday previews this spring’s most enticing Handel performance with two very different live versions of his delightful Serse,.
It’s 1938. We know, even if the characters do not, how the story will end.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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