I first experienced the magic of Seiji Ozawa in 1972 when I was 12 years old.
A well-known Met Aïda with a starry cast from 1967 is TildyDiva’s Favorite Verdi Performance
This Bard production, led by Leon Botstein, makes the strongest possible case musically, dramatically and visually for Smetana’s opera Dalibor.
The New York City Opera has become an elusive “now you see it, now you don’t” presence in the New York opera scene since the departure of main sponsor and chairman of the board Roy G. Niederhoffer in 2019.
The only correct version of Don Carlos must be in French. That is the language that Verdi composed it in and he made all his revisions in that language.
In the last weeks of January, as the Metropolitan Opera season wound to a close (prior to the winter hiatus) two striking sopranos were thrust into the limelight.
I had no idea whatsoever of the reality of the life of this strong, vibrant woman I had gotten to know, the traumas she suffered; the extent and the horror of her experiences was all very surreal to me.
I never fathomed I’d be writing words as these this soon.
Trove Thursday offers two very different live recordings of Halévy’s grand opera La Juive.
A sense of celebration was definitely in the air last Thursday at the Vienna State Opera.
Lise Davidsen, the young Norwegian soprano who won the Operalia competition in 2015, makes her debut as a recording artist with the Decca label in a new recital of Wagner and Strauss arias and orchestral songs.
The opera proved somewhat puzzling—the score representing more a collage of fragmented and incidental musical ideas, and the libretto a turgid, slow-moving mass of purple prose.
Christian Thielemann is widely regarded as our time’s preeminent master of the Austro-German symphonic ensemble.
Wagner’s Ring is an artistic masterpiece that is peerless in its ability to continually reveal layers of musical, theatrical, and philosophical insight
“Trove Thursday” leaps to the end of the cycle with a slightly abridged Götterdämmerung featuring Amy Shuard as Brünnhilde.
The conclusion of our Fanciulla del West video overview in three parts looks at a trio of performances from the 2010s.
Edita Gruberova essentially revived and propagated the bel canto repertoire in central Europe, specifically in the German-speaking countries.
It can be confidently asserted that Edita Gruberova is one opera’s most gifted comediennes.
No 50th anniversary career tribute would be complete without covering Edita Gruberova’s legendary status as the premier Zerbinetta of her long reign in the role!
Good singing and a dramatically potent (if conservative) production were an unbeatable combination in the Metropolitan Opera’s season premiere of Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore.
The second DVD/Blu-ray with Plácido Domingo as Verdi’s other beleaguered Doge, Francesco in I due Foscari.
Ali Baba ou Les Quarantes Voleurs continues straight-tone September with Teresa Stich-Randall as its heroine while Alfredo Kraus scales the heights with another Nadir.
From up close, the miked opera singer can be a bit tough to take.
Going into Washington National Opera’s final presentation of the season, Madama Butterfly, I feared that I might be geisha’d out.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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