Glorious excess Glorious excess

Despite the ever-increasing media coverage of San Francisco’s “doom loop,” June 2023 will be forever remembered as the time where San Francisco was the opera capital of the United States.

Mozart for another time Mozart for another time

Eagerly awaiting Met May Mozart Madness, Chris’s Cache presents a starry quintet of the master’s operas not being done next month.

Da drin ist die silberne Ros’n Da drin ist die silberne Ros’n

A week from tonight the Met premieres an eagerly anticipated new Der Rosenkavalier, its first in nearly 50 years—probably to the dismay of many grown used to the venerable Nathaniel Merrill–Robert O’Hearn production. As a preview “Trove Thursday” offers a live broadcast of Richard Strauss’s most popular opera with a delicious cast headed by Régine…

Piotr, principally Piotr, principally

Vanity project or not, these albums present a sensitive and talented artist showing off two little-seen sides of himself.

Bridging the Channel

It’s kind of shocking, when you really think about it, that the kind of international operatic model that the Royal Opera now operates on barely existed only 50 years ago. Until around 1960 most of the performances at the Covent Garden were given in English and the casting choices were enough to make the Vicar…

Homage girl

It would be a shame, I think, if EMI’s stunt video of Angela Gheorghiu “in duet” with Maria Callas backfired powerfully enough to prevent serious opera fans (well, okay, let’s say “enthusiastic opera fans,” that’s more like it) from listening to the Romanian diva’s new CD Homage to Maria Callas. There’s a lot on this…