Intermezzo (a love story)
The glorious and beloved Elisabeth Söderström tackles the fiendishly difficult role of Christine in a 1974 performance from Glyndebourne.
Theater an der Wien
War, what is it good for?
Verdi’s ninth opera, Attila, offers all the noisy music from Nabucco without a “Va pensiero” to cherish.
You must meet my wife
The rewards of Leonore lie almost as much in the ensembles as the solo contributions.
What win I, if I gain the thing I seek?
This week we get closer to completing the operas of Benjamin Britten with The Rape of Lucretia.
Montag mit Marguerite
Berlioz apparently couldn’t decide if his was an oratorio or an opera, so he labeled it a “légende dramatique.” Since its 1846 Paris premiere, it remains on both opera stages and in concert halls, with its first Met staging in 1906.
Fast and furious
A 1984 performance of Handel’s Orlando with Marilyn Horne, Valerie Masterson, Marvis Martin, Jeffery Gall and Robert Lloyd, conducted by Charles Mackerras.
The lady or the Tiber
On his 86th birthday last month, the great Austrian conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt announced his retirement.
From the house of the living
Pierre Boulez continuously challenged me and totally changed the way I listen to music.
Dienstag mit Marianne
I think my love/hate relationship with Händel stems from the fact that during my early days as an operagoer there simply wasn’t any to hear.
Pli Ceylon pli
Theater an der Wien did justice to Bizet earlier this season with a cast starring Diana Damrau, Dmitry Korchak, and Nathan Gunn.
The kindness of Previn
Renée Fleming is one of the most polarizing figures to be discussed here on an ongoing basis.
Belief in a higher power
The behavioral phenomenon of limerence has been described as “an involuntary potentially inspiring state of adoration and attachment to a limerent object involving intrusive and obsessive thoughts, feelings and behaviors from euphoria to despair, contingent on perceived emotional reciprocation.”
Thrace off
Nearly 30 years after a Handel opera last played there, Carnegie Hall presented The English Concert opening a three-year opera-oratorio project on Sunday afternoon with Radamisto.
Be careful what you ask for
When our coquine Doyenne invited those interested to review recordings I kindly requested Italian belcanto and early French works. Instead, I got a DVD of Schubert’s Alfonso und Estrella (ahem, in German!), thus the title of this review. It was one of those WTF? moments, and I thought La C. was in a PMS attack. […]
She feels pretty
An unlikely but adept English-language vocal stylist, Cecilia Bartoli, led the cast of a revival of the 2007 Zurich staging of Handel’s Semele, transferred to the Theater an der Wien for a short run. Director Robert Carsen takes an occasional liberty: Juno and Jupiter emerge as British royals, for instance, she a wellie-wearer and devotee […]
Where is style? Where is skill? Where is forethought?
Yes, another YouTube posting, but this one is something very special indeed. Legendary Zarah Leander is seen in a few moments from her 1975 triumph as Madame Armfelt in Das Lächeln einer Sommernacht (A Little Night Music) at the Theater an der Wien. La Leander also cavorts about a studio, lipsynching a medley of her […]
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).