The Metropolitan Opera’s much vaunted so-called “Tudor Ring” of three royal operas by Donizetti got off to a bumpy start Saturday afternoon with a revival of Anna Bolena that stubbornly refused to cohere either musically or dramatically.
A clearly moved Hvorostovsky basked in the moment and momentarily broke character to acknowledge the love.
Would exciting American dramatic soprano Christine Goerke be the next great ice-princess we have been waiting for?
While the celebrity-studded, expensively-dressed audience gathered for the gala opening of the Metropolitan Opera’s 2015-2016 season seemed genuinely enthralled by Monday evening’s performance of Otello, it was more likely swept away by the power of Verdi’s genius than by Bartlett Sher’s puzzling, inert new production.
Along with Don Giovanni, Carmen is an odd bird on the list of the most beloved and frequently performed works.
There is a simple elegance to the single-composer recital album format. For the listener in the mood for, say, Puccini, it’s a chance to delve into his music without any pesky interruptions by those other guys like Verdi or Massenet. And if one is also in the mood for a particular singer’s art, then the…
For those of you who can’t make it to the Met’s opening night, I am happy to provide you the opportunity to experience another Otello with a cast that was unmatchable for 1981.
“Hailed ‘the Meryl Streep of opera’…” begins one sentence of a promotional piece for a Diana Damrau recording of another opera, reproduced on the soprano’s website.
The studio opera recording is a rare beast these days and its arrival always a cause for celebration.
The winter 2014 final run of the Met’s first/only Rusalka production (a new one is scheduled in a few seasons) seemed both a nod to the theater’s past and a hint of its future.
One of opera’s great “what ifs?” is what would young Erich Wolfgang Korngold have contributed to the repertoire had the likes of The Adventures of Robin Hood not beckoned him to Hollywood?
“She sounds the note of deep pathos in both action and song convincingly, and last night won the tribute of tears from many eyes.”
In attempting to get a little bit of everything onto my Mixcloud page, I realized that I inadvertently neglected some essentials: 1) Leyla Gencer 2) La Gioconda.
The reviews for Geraldine Farrar‘s Metropolitan Opera debut (Opening Night of the 1906-1907 season) could almost have been written by her own mother.
Few new operas have received the near-unanimous acclaim that has greeted Written on Skin since its first performance at the 2012 Aix-en-Provence Festival.
I was greatly anticipating Karita Mattila’s recital on Friday in Toronto’s Koerner Hall.
Geraldine Farrar has gone and the Gerry-flappers are disconsolate.
The CD explosion coincided with an enormous increase in interest in HIP (historically informed performance) so now there were lots of commercial recordings of the sort of operas I had turned to pirates to find.
It never occurred to me that each tape had to be individually dubbed or that others, maybe many, many others, might also be ordering tapes at the same time.
Back when I was a good boy, I told my parents that my goal in getting my first job was to earn money for college; however, my real motive was to make my secret wish come true—to be able to consort with “pirates.”
Let’s all listen to the American debut of Ghena Dimitrova in this 1981 performance of Ernani from Dallas.
I have found myself truly bewildered by some of the online reviews of the Glimmerglass production of Verdi’s Macbeth.
The redevelopment that took place at Lincoln Center during Reynold Levy’s tenure as president of Lincoln Center represents a considerable accomplishment.
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.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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