A passing mood
Mascagni‘s Zanetto, a slight, Renaissance scene, gets a new recording from the Berlin Opera Group.
Odyssey Opera
Lucky those people who are so anxious to believe
A high-drama Vanessa by the Boston Symphony Orchestra offers something to believe in.
Now, voyager
The miracle workers at Boston Modern Orchestra Project and Odyssey Opera have published another premiere recording of a work that I’ve long heard of but never heard: Dominick Argento’s The Voyage of Edgar Allan Poe.
The cheese stands alone
Strike Up the Band! cried the brothers Gershwin (and book-writers George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind) in the first of their three satirical, vaguely political operettas—sort of jazz Gilbert & Sullivan—that they dreamed up in the late 1920s.
Rachmaninoff three ways
A troika of operas by Rachmaninoff: Aleko , The Miserly Knight and Francesca da Rimini , courtesy of Odyssey Opera.
Queen’s evidence
Trove Thursday’s belated contribution to last weekend’s Platinum Jubilee is a broadcast from Aldeburgh of Benjamin Britten’s Gloriana with Christine Brewer and Tom Randle as Elizabeth and Essex, an opera which premiered 69 years ago yesterday.
Il corsaro
Michael Fabiano in one of his specialties as the dashing hero of Il corsaro torn between Tamara Wilson and Nicole Cabell.
Bloody Mary, Hold the Pepper
Come ye addicts of melody! After long eclipse, Bel Canto shines again!
The long listen
A conversation with maestro Gil Rose of Odyssey Opera.
Sweet dreams
Bard SummerScape’s concert staging of Die Tote Stadt emerged triumphant thanks to Clay Hilley and Sara Jakubiak.
Pearl of wisdom
Odyssey Opera’s Ägyptische Helena was a beautifully executed production of a flawed opera.
A Lesbian in distress
Zelmira, a work of 1822, was the last of the eight operas Rossini composed for the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, then the largest opera house in Italy—perhaps in Europe.
Djinn and tonic
Odyssey Opera in Boston, which loves to open its season with a concert performance of some forgotten work, gave La Reine de Saba in Jordan Hall Saturday night.
What’s at stake for a soul on fire?
Norman Dello Joio, who was knocking about winning prizes for film and TV scores, composed The Trial at Rouen, his second opera on the subject, for NBC.
Allowing the birds to nest in your hair
In the seventies and eighties Dominick Argento (who turned ninety this year) was one of the most oft-performed of American opera composers.
Triumphal Arc
Tchaikovsky’s Orleánskaia Djeva (The Maid of Orleans) kicked off Odyssey’s Opera’s fifth season
A Frabjous Day: The Siege of Calais
The turntable set looks much the same from any angle: gutted concrete tenements and perilous alleys, instantly recognizable as a scene of urban guerrilla mayhem.
Catch a falling tsar
You’d think by now I’d know better than to make snap judgments about an opera or a singer—but apparently not.
Home brew
An extraordinarily rich variety of opera happens locally, under the umbrella of New York Opera Fest.
Ezio said than done
Ezio was an inspired choice for Boston’s feisty Odyssey Opera to open its “When In Rome” festival.
In Bruges
They say that Boston, despite many cultural distinctions, ain’t no opera town, and for some decades—generations?—this has been true. But tides of change will break, even on the shores of the Hub.
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).