“Trove Thursday” offers Gemma di Vergy with the lovely, largely now forgotten Adriana Maliponte in the title role.
I wish to introduce our younger Parterrians to the magical Martha Mödl to commemorate the opening of the Bayreuther Festspiele which opens tomorrow afternoon.
Endlessly extricating her from existing contracts then negotiating new ones must make being Sonya Yoncheva’s manager the hardest job in the music business.
An outstanding performance of Weber’s Euryanthe to share on “Trove Thursday.”
“If you’ve overdosed on Der Rosenkavalier in the past week, let’s go back a few years to Richard Strauss’ first operatic hit: Salome.
“Trove Thursday” presents Altre Stelle, a fascinating performance piece which includes superb renditions of excerpts from operas by Berlioz, Cherubini, Gluck and Rameau.
On Thursday evening, the Teatro alla Scala audience didn’t watch the familiar presentation of a “wayward woman” who overcomes moral inferiority only to be robbed of happiness when she finally deserved it.
Opening night of La Scala in 1962 with Franco Corelli, Antonietta Stella, Fiorenza Cossotto, Ettore Bastianini, and Ivo Vinco.
Radvanovsky delivered a vocal and histrionic performance that should be the gold standard Norma for years.
Now we find Mariella Devia, a diva held in near mythic regard due to her vocal longevity, with competing videos of two of her performances that were released, literally, on the same day.
Kaufmann conveys Lohengrin’s immense loneliness in a profoundly moving way. I am happy to report that vocally he sounds completely recovered.
In our circle, Mexico City in the summer was the opera capital of the world from the late 1940s and early 1950.
“Trove Thursday” offers a sparkling performance of Rossini’s La Cenerentola from our nation’s capital featuring the scintillating conducting of Claudio Abbado and Lucia Valentini-Terrani in the title role.
Jonas Kaufmann announced that he feels ready to return to the stage after calling in sick since last autumn
Anita Cerquetti had one of the most remarkable, most brief careers in opera in the past century.
“Take a good deal of trouble with it, because it is a fine subject, delicate and full of pathos.”
Patrice Chéreau, the humanist in provocateur’s clothing, returned to Wagner in 2007 at La Scala with Daniel Barenboim and Waltraud Meier.
Just 85 years ago, four of Italy’s greatest opera stars gathered at Teatro all Scala for an historic event: the first-ever recording of Arrigo Boito’s sole complete opera, Mefistofele.
“The music’s fun, but doesn’t Rossini repeat himself?”
It’s time to add more legends to my Mixcloud site: Mario Del Monaco, Raina Kabaivanska, and Tito Gobbi star in this 1962 performance of Otello from Covent Garden led by Georg Solti.
That little place just two hours from the city is on the list of things I shall never understand, like the plot of Parsifal.
This week, I offer you a classic rendition of Richard Strauss’ tale of the House of Atreus starring Ursula Schröder-Feinen, Astrid Varnay, Leonie Rysanek, Theo Adam, and Hans Hopf under Karl Böhm’s direction.
The grand illusion is that we know it all. From four hundred years of opera, we’ve distilled the worthy survivors.
Giuseppe Verdi was so unhappy with the first production of his Giovanna d’Arco at La Scala in 1845 that he swore an oath to himself that he would never entrust that theatre with a prima again.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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