I wonder why many New Yorkers have been led to believe that the only Handel conductor in the world is Harry Bicket.
While it must be admitted that Elza van den Heever doesn’t have an ideally warm and agile Handel voice, she evidenced fierce control over her instrument and skillfully built a powerful portrait of the courageous Rodelida fighting for her survival.
Next Wednesday is the composer’s 337th birthday, so Trove Thursday previews this spring’s most enticing Handel performance with two very different live versions of his delightful Serse,.
As New Yorkers swelter in the Fahrenheit 90s. Trove Thursday escapes to wintry Vienna 1920s for Richard Strauss’s Intermezzo (in English) sumptuously conducted by Julius Rudel and starring the incomparable Elisabeth Söderström as the delicious, exasperating wife of Alan Titus.
Pauline Tinsley, who died May 11, made few commercial recordings; Trove Thursday offers the thrilling English soprano in excerpts over nearly two decades from nine works ranging from Handel to Richard Strauss.
The great Dalai Lama once said, “whenever there is a challenge, there is also an opportunity to face it, to demonstrate and develop our will and determination.”
Last month in the New York Times Joshua Barone surveyed recent European streams of German works by Kurt Weill and pondered their relationship to his later Broadway successes; his piece prompted Trove Thursday to feature two versions of One Touch of Venus.
“Once upon a time / Lived a foolish king. / Mocking Death, his crime, / Pure chaos he bring.”
For those of you keeping track at home that’s four substitutions for three roles and the curtain hasn’t even gone up yet.
“Trove Thursday” presents Purcell’s remarkably concise Dido and Aeneas in a pair of fascinatingly different interpretations.
“Trove Thursday” escapes to an exotic place with Rimsky-Korsakov’s Sadko.
David Alden’s acclaimed production of Leos Janácek’s Jenufa was mounted for its final performance of the season during the evening that I experienced my first opera at Santa Fe.
Everett Quinton’s Galas is a star at the end of her tether, and she goes nova with the best.
Saturday night I navigated the Music Center concourse, or what’s left of it with it’s seemingly eternal construction to the main plaza, wending my way to the Dorothy Chandler for the opening night of LA Opera’s Hansel and Gretel.
Beautiful singing, thoughtful staging, lovely melodies… a perfect escape from daily life.
Lightning struck again here when, after a wait of 39 years, San Francisco Opera unveiled a new production of Donizetti’s Roberto Devereux.
Sometimes the fates conspire, preventing an artist from recording the role for which he is his generation’s touchstone.
By the end of the first act, it was clear to me that I was experiencing an artist performing at her absolute peak.
Celebrating Lenny’s 100th this year has made Candide ubiquitous at opera houses worldwide.
Why, only now, Cendrillon is having its premiere at the Met is a puzzling question.
Neumeier adapted the story close to home, making Orpheus a choreographer and his wife a star ballerina.
“Trove Thursday” ushers in February with Catalani’s La Wally with a mountain-top cast of Renata Tebaldi, Renata Scotto, Mario del Monaco, Giangiacomo Guelfi and Giorgio Tozzi conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini.
“Trove Thursday” offers a belated 55th birthday nod to Dmitri Hvorostovsky with a blazing live performance of Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Tsar’s Bride.
Erin Wall was an elegant, warm, and sensitive Arabella.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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