They used to say of the island of Crete that it produces more history than can be consumed locally.
It takes a lot to stop a show with a few minutes of music—and that is exactly what Leah Hawkins did during the 2019 run of Porgy and Bess at The Metropolitan Opera.
It was an unexpected tone for the cold stone and moody ambiance of the catacombs—an odd juxtaposition that I’m not sure really worked.
But pressing questions remains: Why? Who is this Figaro for?
Following Gundula Janowitz and Janet Baker, Chris’s Cache sends birthday greetings to another favorite diva—Karita Matilla—with a quartet of broadcasts.
Michael Anthonio crunches the numbers on San Francisco Opera’s recent seasons and goes straight to the top to General Director Matthew Shilvock for a look at where SF Opera has been and where it’s headed
Don’t cry for me, Birgit Nilsson
Chris’s Cache celebrates the 91st birthday today of Janet Baker, one of my favorite singers.
When my editor suggested to me a round-up of my favorite recordings of Jacques Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann I was très, très, intrigued.
Folks who have never attended a full-length, uncut Giacomo Meyerbeer grand opera have been known to pout and ponder: Why did the most popular opera composer of the mid-nineteenth century all but vanish from the stages of the world after a hundred years?
As a burgeoning opera fan, I relied on YouTube to connect me with the art form.
Too young to be in love. But not too young to go to war or to die.
Pelléas and Mélisande are not transparent to themselves. Which means: they each have an unconscious.
I suspect Carolina Uccelli was tough.
“In over nine years you’ve never posted an opera by Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari,” no one has ever said.
During the 1970s, Stephen Sondheim composed Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, Pacific Overtures and Sweeney Todd–five richly varied masterpieces of musical theater in a nearly miraculous burst of creativity.
Chris’s Cache follows up its Gounod R&J installment with a widely varied quintet of additional Romeos and Juliets
Mixing the historical with the personal in strikingly original ways, Davóne Tines and Zack Winokur’s Robeson sent sparks out over the Hudson.
The outdoor recitals that the Metropolitan Opera presents in New York City Parks every summer are a wonderful way to showcase rising young stars and promising beginners from the Met’s Lindemann Program.
Bergamo hosts an annual Donizetti festival, Salzburg presents a Mozart-woche every January, and of course there is Bayreuth for Wagner. But Handel gets two festivals every spring, and this year I was finally able to attend one of them.
Final opera of the season. Little-known opera. A revival. So, you can probably skip it, right?
I’m old enough to remember when Yannick Nézet-Séguin could do no wrong.
On June 11th, the Met Orchestra returned to Carnegie Hall with a diverse program led by music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin.
There were, of course, other Chénier recordings beyond the truly great ones…
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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