On the 21st of this month Romanian soprano Virginia Zeani will celebrate her 95th birthday and Trove Thursday salutes her versatility with two markedly different 20th century works: Menotti’s The Consul and Mascagni’s Il Piccolo Marat, one of many collaborations with her husband Nicola Rossi-Lemeni.
Trove Thursday presents Alzira—derided by some as Verdi’s worst opera—in a 1968 Carnegie Hall concert with Gianfranco Cecchele, Louis Quilico (star of last night’s Met Rigoletto stream) and Elinor Ross, who died in March at age 93.
I still remember, and some of it quite vividly, what it was like to experience Achim Freyer‘s intense and groundbreaking Ring production all these years later.
What does the opera singer of the future look like?
Trove Thursday offers a problematic yet fascinating work that would almost certainly not be staged today: Il Guarany by Carlos Gomes featuring João Gibin, Gianna d’Angelo, Piero Cappuccilli and Nicola Zaccaria.
Robert Wilson is many things: a visionary (certainly); an iconoclast, artist, director, and designer of sets, lighting, costumes, movement (and furniture). Yet his work is never boring (well, at least not intentionally).
Trove Thursday finally welcomes Wagner’s Lohengrin arriving in a concert performance conducted by Georg Solti with Siegfried Jerusalem, Julia Varady, Eva Randová, Hermann Becht, Hans Sotin and Wolfgang Schöne.
As the late Arlene Saunders had a very limited commercial discography and performed mostly in Europe, I thought some readers might be curious to hear more of her.
Trove Thursday goes mini-epic with Gustave Charpentier’s naturalistic slice-of-life of fin-de-siêcle Paris in a rare 1999 Renée Fleming performance of Louise co-starring Jerry Hadley, Samuel Ramey and Felicity Palmer.
It was love at first hearing. The music was glorious, the conducting bouncy and pointed, and the singers sure sounded terrific to me.
For those of you keeping track at home that’s four substitutions for three roles and the curtain hasn’t even gone up yet.
Sunday is Handel’s 335th birthday, an event Trove Thursday celebrates with Rodelinda, Regina de’Longobardi, one of the composer’s most popular works.
A special program note for Saturday night’s performance of Matthew Aucoin’s new opera Eurydice pointed to a rare convergence of three MacArthur Grant fellows in its creation and staging.
We’ve had a mini-fest of director Barrie Kosky’s work this year at LA Opera.
Bring your family: This show is special! Such perfect opera is hard to find!
The San Francisco Opera, perhaps incidentally, continued their exploration of operas based on literary works by mounting the revival of Giacomo Puccini’s first success, Manon Lescaut.
Friday evening’s Met premiere of Akhnaten was a resounding triumph and an outstanding testament to Philip Glass’s enduring operatic vision.
Trove Thursday acknowledges the late Raymond Leppard‘s important influence with a live broadcast of his seminal “realisation” of Cavalli’s L’Ormindo plus some Cavalli and Monteverdi tidbits with Janet Baker.
How does one make a performance of standard opera repertoire like Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro feel “fresh?”
An opera company presenting a Broadway musical that centers around a woman of a certain age travelling to Italy with her young daughter might seem more a vehicle for a great diva of a certain age.
Luisa Miller snowballs toward disaster and death.
“Trove Thursday” presents for the third annual installment of “Handel for my Birthday” a wickedly ideal Felicity Palmer dominating Agrippina.
I’m certain I wasn’t the only one thrilled to bits to see LA Opera’s production of La Bohème finally retired after 26 years and seven mountings.
Kudos to Opera Philadelphia for programming Handel’s Semele in its exceptionally interesting and wide-ranging Festival 2019; unfortunately, despite an extraordinary cast, James Darrah’s drably dull production doomed it.
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.