I would they had changed voices too!
Chris’s Cache follows up its Gounod R&J installment with a widely varied quintet of additional Romeos and Juliets
Vienna Staatsoper
Contents fragile
Perhaps the greatest souvenir of her art there is.
Se non è vero, è ben ‘Trovatore’
Chris’s Cache offers up a quintet of intriguing “forgotten” Leonora-Azucena pairings from the 1970s.
Pearls of great Price
Anticipating Leontyne Price’s 96th birthday on February 10, Chris’s Cache presents the American diva in an epic collection of live performances.
“So much for traditional sweetness and charm”
On this day in 1998 the Metropolitan Opera presented a new production of Le nozze di Figaro featuring Cecilia Bartoli as Susanna.
Consistently enthralling
To conclude its triumphant season, last week the Met Orchestra performed its annual Carnegie Hall concerts under music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin and once again performed superbly.
The Multiverse of Morley
A Trove Thursday Mega-Post © featuring the wonderful American soprano Erin Morley in Orff’s Carmina Burana and Richard Strauss’s Brentano Lieder, plus extended live excerpts from Handel’s Orlando, Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail, and Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots.
Quicksilver princess
Trove Thursday remembers Edita Gruberová with live recordings of two of the three operas I heard her perform at the Met: a 1985 Munich La Traviata with Neil Shicoff and Wolfgang Brendel conducted by Carlos Kleiber and an I Puritani from Vienna 1994 featuring two other artists who recently left us too soon: Marcello Giordani and Dmitri Hvorostovsky.
Shining through
Trove Thursday celebrates Christa Ludwig with live excerpts from 1955 through 1982.
I, Franco
Franco Corelli was born on April 8, 1921 in Ancona and Trove Thursday celebrates the matinee-idol tenor’s centenary with a pair of his rare non-Met US appearances; seducing Marie Collier in La Fanciulla del West and vacillating between Ilva Ligabue and Grace Bumbry in Il Trovatore.
Dies irae, dies illa
Trove Thursday offers Mozart’s Requiem with Lucia Popp, Christa Ludwig, Peter Schreier and Walter Berry conducted by James Levine from the 1981 Salzburg Festival.
No sleep, no rest
Following last week’s Golden Cockerel, Trove Thursday offers another classic Russian opera not in Russian: Borodin’s Fürst Igor with Nelly Miricioiu, Marjana Lipovsek, Bodo Brinkmann, Evgeny Nesterenko, Robert Schunk and Sergei Koptchak conducted by Mark Ermler.
Attila
Today’s offering is an electric performance of Verdi’s early potboiler Attila conducted by Giuseppe Sinopoli with Nicolai Ghiaurov, Piero Cappuccilli and the weirdly exciting (or is it the other way around?) Mara Zampieri.
To love the language
With most of us dug in for the duration, there’s no better time to tuck into a CD box set of neglected treasures. Not that I needed an excuse, mind you.
The real deal
Yusif Eyvazov dominated Friday’s Met premiere of Pikovaya Dama with a fearless, world-class portrayal that instantly transformed the opera into December’s must-see event.
I had too much to dream last night
Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Die Tote Stadt in a 1967 Vienna broadcast appropriately featuring three American stars: John Alexander, Marilyn Zschau, and George London.
Being alive
Orfeo’s latest edition is a 1978 performance of Lucia di Lammermoor with a very estimable cast that on its surface may seem a tad mundane but the extensive liner notes (with performance photos) tell the story of why it held such magic.
You shall know them by their ‘Flutes’
This year’s Salzburg Festival opens Saturday with a new production of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, an opera often performed elsewhere in translation, so “Trove Thursday” offers two for the price (!) of one.
Perfect stranger
Christophe Dumaux quickly slipped in and out of town this weekend to sing Handel and Vivaldi in a marvelous gala concert with the Sejong Soloists at Zankel Hall.
Z to A
Today’s offering is an electric performance of Verdi’s early potboiler Attila conducted by Giuseppe Sinopoli.
Composer’s intentions
A live broadcast of the prologue to Ariadne auf Naxos featuring Julia Varady, a favorite sopranos in a role she sang only rarely.
One Handel, one heart
I don’t usually attend a performance of an opera I’ve known well most of my life expecting a revelation.
The song is you
Met audiences might have to wait a very long time for Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.
All about my stepmother
“Trove Thursday” presents Sena Jurinac‘s radiant portrayal of Janacek’s Jenufa opposite the implacable Kostelnicka of Martha Mödl.
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).