La Cieca asked that the next installment of Chris’s Cache mark the recent passing of Michael Kaye, known to readers of this site as QuantoPainyFakor.

Chris’s Cache offers up a quintet of intriguing “forgotten” Leonora-Azucena pairings from the 1970s.

Franco Bonisolli from age 28 to 33 in complete operas by Mozart, Cimarosa, Donizetti and Massenet.

This week Chris’s Cache features Maria Chiara, Elena Mauti-Nunziata, Rita Orlandi-Malaspina and Orianna Santunione in L’Amico Fritz, Mefistofele, Simon Boccanegra and La Fanciulla del West, respectively.

Anticipating John Eliot Gardiner’s epic tour next month, Chris’s Cache savors several versions of Berlioz’s Les Troyens.

While reading about the challenges that have faced next week’s Bayreuth opening, I realized I’m a bad Parsifal fan: while I admire the first and third acts of Wagner’s final masterpiece, I really only love the pagan second.

Opera house versions of Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd featuring Bryn Terfel / Judith Christin and Thomas Allen / Felicity Palmer.

Christa Ludwig sings Kundry in Parsifal with Helge Brilioth, Thomas Stewart and Cesare Siepi conducted by Leopold Ludwig, followed by a legendary Birgit Nilsson–Jon Vickers Tristan und Isolde led by Erich Leinsdorf.

After attending three Met Lohengrins I’ve gone into Wagner withdrawal waiting for the upcoming Der Fliegende Holländer.

Eagerly awaiting Met May Mozart Madness, Chris’s Cache presents a starry quintet of the master’s operas not being done next month.

Chris’s Cache ends March with Berlioz’s exquisite Shakespeare adaptation Béatrice et Bénédict because it’s just the best thing to listen to on a spring day.

In Richard Strauss’s Arabella, the heroine is consumed with finding the right man—der Richtige—but who is the right Arabella?

Chris’s Cache offers a pride of short early English works: John Blow’s Venus and Adonis (1683); Purcell’s King Arthur (1691) and The Indian Queen (1695); John Eccles’s The Judgement of Paris (1700); William Boyce’s Solomon (1743); and John Stanley’s Arcadia (1762).

A week from tonight Franz Welser-Möst brings the Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus to Carnegie Hall for a rare performance of Schubert’s Mass No. 6 in E-flat Major, D 950.

Chris’s Cache begins 2023 with a pair of bel canto operas featuring two artists soon to make their Met debuts: Sabine Devieilhe in the title role of Donizetti’s La Fille du regiment and Xabier Anduaga driving Lisette Oropesa crazy in Bellini’s I Puritani.

Lohengrin, one of my favorite Wagner operas, has been missing from the Met since 2006! For holiday listening and to prepare for its 26 February return, Chris’s Cache offers four interesting versions spanning nearly 40 years.