Unexpected Wagneriennes
After attending three Met Lohengrins I’ve gone into Wagner withdrawal waiting for the upcoming Der Fliegende Holländer.
chris’s cache
I’ll remember April
If April is the cruelest month, it may be that spring’s arrival brings far too many things to do and see.
Mozart for another time
Eagerly awaiting Met May Mozart Madness, Chris’s Cache presents a starry quintet of the master’s operas not being done next month.
Some disenchanted evening
Today Chris’s Cache offers Angela Meade in Les vêpres siciliennes, along with a complementary I vespri siciliani starring Carol Vaness, another favorite American soprano.
You must believe in spring
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.
Someday she’ll come along, the girl I love
In Richard Strauss’s Arabella, the heroine is consumed with finding the right man—der Richtige—but who is the right Arabella?
Sacred raptures cheer my breast
The English Concert’s annual Handel tour brings Solomon conducted by Harry Bicket to the US beginning Sunday March 5. In anticipation, Chris’s Cache offers Solomon plus four other oratorios by the master: Belshazzar, Hercules, Saul and Jephtha, all via broadcasts for which I feel a personal connection.
Act two
Chris’s Cache sends Renata Scotto a valentine ahead of her 89th birthday next week with rare in-house recordings of eight (!) mid-career performances spanning 1971-1977.
Here comes the judgement
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).
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.
Mass appeal
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.
Coming attractions
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.
Swan dive
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.
Wagnerienne
Diva November meets Wagner December when Chris’s Cache this week offers Régine Crespin as both Elisabeth in Tannhäuser and Senta in Der Fliegende Holländer via a pair of American pirates from the 1960s.
Everything sacred
Wrapping up Diva November, Chris’s Cache offers two sacred works that couldn’t be more unalike.
Judith in disguise
No one who followed Trove Thursday will be surprised that Diva November on Chris’s Cache today features Ann Hallenberg and Sandrine Piau.
Tragic carpet ride
Diva November on Chris’s Cache continues with a half dozen of my favorite singers performing solo concert works you’ve likely never heard them in before: Janet Baker, Cecilia Bartoli, Cathy Berberian, Bernarda Fink, Elina Garanca and Jessye Norman in music by Haydn, Monteverdi, Schoenberg, Wagner, Porpora and Beethoven.
Cold November
Diva November continues with three favorite divas in rare recordings of important 20th century works.
Days of the diva
The magazine to which I no longer subscribe has for years celebrated divas each November; Chris’s Cache follows suit offering favorite sopranos and mezzos in live-performance rarities every Tuesday this month.
The Conqueror
Chris’s Cache offers Le Siège de Corinthe, the later French version of Maometto II, with Katia Ricciarelli, Martine Dupuy, Curtis Rayam and Ferruccio Furlanetto.
This is a gala day for you
On October 14, 1979 I spent my birthday attending my first all-star opera gala, thrilled at the chance to hear some of the great singers I’d only experienced on LPs, broadcasts or via my pirate reel-to-reel tapes.