Myto’s transfer of Herbert von Karajan’s star-bedecked 1958 Die Walküre from La Scala gives collectors on a budget access to one of the legendary performances committed to tape.
The wonderful Spanish mezzo Teresa Berganza celebrates her 81st birthday next week and “Trove Thursday” gets the party started.
There is a self-effacing quality to Jonas Kaufmann’s concert film An Evening with Puccini.
t’s with great joy that I am able to give you Carmen, sung in Italian, from La Scala in 1931. I love this kind of stuff.
The Canadian Robert Carsen would appear to love the theater to the point of fixation.
Gather around while I play Ghost of New Year’s Eve past!
Maria Agresta‘s delicately-acted, sumptuously-sung seamstress transformed what might have been just an average Wednesday night revival into something finer.
A much-loved diva overdue for this site is Anna Moffo.
The most recent Egyptian voluptuary of 2006 by our friend Franco has now been replaced by the most singularly spartan production of Verdi’s masterpiece I think I’ve ever seen.
William Christie’s Les Arts Florissants made a much-anticipated appearance at Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival Saturday performing Theodora.
Several prima donnas have ought to resurrect La Vestale, including Renata Scotto, whose priestess highlights this week’s “Trove Thursday.”
On Wednesday, the still-active, still radiant Virginia Zeani turns 90.
For all their orchestral and vocal attractions, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s 15 operas are rarities in the West.
Would exciting American dramatic soprano Christine Goerke be the next great ice-princess we have been waiting for?
Many live treasures (and some duds) began to take up more and more space—first in my dorm room, then in my first little studio apartment thanks to a group of quite special men, none of whom I ever met face to face.
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.”
Heaven temporarily relocated to the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées Sunday evening for a concert performance of Rossini’s revered but rarely heard Semiramide.
The rediscovery of Franco Faccio’s Amleto, a curious score that last week, via Baltimore Concert Opera, received its first performances since 1871, reminds us just how tough an act Giuseppe Verdi was to follow.
A great man has passed and our consolation is that so much of his art has been preserved for us on recordings.
Two operas both alike in dignity, set in dimly lit Renaissance towns ruled by seething, conspiratorial courts.
Even before Italian diva Mariella Devia had completed the stunning high D natural that capped her miraculous portrayal of Elisabetta in Donizetti’s Roberto Devereux Thursday evening at Carnegie Hall, tens, then hundreds of those in attendance leapt to their feet to shout their acclaim.
It appears that Mariame Clément’s conception of Don Pasquale is that the opera should be retitled Malatesta.
I am certain that we Parterrians are a very literate, even literary, group.
Once again, beloveds, we approach the Milanese shrine that simultaneously attempted to cultivate and destroy the career of Maria Meneghini Callas.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
×
Sign up for Parterre’s free newsletter.
Exclusive opera reviews, commentary, and top reads
delivered to your email weekly…ish.