Every little thing she does is magic
A good time seemed to be had by all though I don’t recall seeing a single child in attendance.
New York
Endearing gifts
Since my previous CD round-up review the onslaught of solo recital disks of 18th century (and sometimes also 17th) vocal music has continued unabated.
The key of dreams
My sister Julie celebrates an important birthday later this month which reminded me—as I also recalled I visiting her while she was living in Prague—that I should unearth Bohuslav Martin?’s Julietta with Lucia Popp and Dénes Gulyás for this week’s Trove Thursday.
Out of the repast
The entire dinner was spent discussing conductors.
A certain theatrical precision
Sondra Radvanovsky was a force of nature as Tosca on Thursday night at the Met.
How deep is your love
As one can see from the chronology published earlier this year, the American Opera Society, in addition to reviving a number of now familiar operas, introduced many singers who became important local figures; however, there were shooting-star exceptions like today’s Trove Thursday offering of d’Albert’s Tiefland featuring Angeles Gulin and Ion Buzea.
Suspended in time
You know in some of those old Jeanette MacDonald movies where she plays a prima donna and receives applause in a public setting? That’s just what happened when the three of us walked into that restaurant, one patron calling out “Brava!”
Random acts
Trove Thursday adds two short works—Goyescas and L’enfant et les sortilèges—to Christian’s expansive recent survey of Bernard Haitink’s opera legacy.
In my very own private hell
No, we don’t really need another “Orpheus” opera. Or, rather, we don’t need this one.
An idea so bold and crazy
I proposed to Edita that we turn my 20-page paper into a book, a musical biography.
Love, your magic spell is everywhere!
Teatro Grattacielo presented two visions of love’s magic on November 13 and 14—one via Spain and Argentina (in collaboration with Opera Hispánica) and the other via Alsace by way of Italy.
Not really about ‘La bohème’
What is there to say about the Franco Zeffirelli Bohème? What is left to say?
Witchy women
You’d think after nearly 40 years of opera going I’d have seen almost everything.. .twice. Yet I found myself at LA Opera Tuesday night for a special presentation of George Frideric Handel’s Alcina which was my first live experience with one of his operas.
Straight to hell
November in New York hosts two premieres dedicated to mythology’s greatest musician, which prompts Trove Thursday to present a vintage Monteverdi L’Orfeo with Judith Raskin and Gérard Souzay conducted by Leopold Stokowski (!) and a recent HIP London broadcast of Luigi Rossi’s L’Orfeo.
The high and the mighty
Last Wednesday the 92nd Street Y presented the friendliest-ever episode of American Gladiators when Lawrence Brownlee and Michael Spyres continued their bel canto bromance with a delirious (almost) all-Rossini recital accompanied by Myra Huang.
Quicksilver princess
Trove Thursday remembers Edita Gruberová with live recordings of two of the three operas I heard her perform at the Met: a 1985 Munich La Traviata with Neil Shicoff and Wolfgang Brendel conducted by Carlos Kleiber and an I Puritani from Vienna 1994 featuring two other artists who recently left us too soon: Marcello Giordani and Dmitri Hvorostovsky.
Sachs appeal
Last night’s cast of Die Meistersinger at the Met, dominated by the irascible, unbeatable duo of Michael Volle and Johannes Martin Kränzle as Sachs and Beckmesser, did much to enliven Otto Schenk’s creaky, nearly 30-year-old production.
A dream deferred
In an era when the Metropolitan Opera cannot cast an Aida, Trovatore or Forza consistently, New Amsterdam Opera managed to cast large, attractive and fully technically capable voices in all the cruelly demanding principal roles in I Vespri Siciliani!
Turandot doesn’t exist
It’s back to business as usual at the Met, for better and for worse.
Riddle me this
Turandot finally arrives on Trove Thursday, but it’s the setting by Ferruccio Busoni which predates by a decade the one by that other Italian guy, and it’s paired today with Arlecchino, the composer’s other commedia dell’arte-influenced short opera.
No country for gold men
Trove Thursday offers two very different live recordings of Halévy’s grand opera La Juive.
A wig and a prayer
A snarky commentator might dub last night at the Met “Boris of the divo hair flip” but that would do a disservice to a serious, often effective performance of the challenging original version of Mussorgsky’s masterpiece.
Playing with ‘Fire’
With composer Terence Blanchard and librettist Kasi Lemmons‘ incendiary Fire Shut Up in My Bones, the Met makes long overdue history and Will Liverman ascends to superstardom.
Goodbye, Nostalgia!
The program was set around themes of loss, of unfulfilled wishes, the endurance of loss, triumphant or depressed.
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).