Decca has released a remarkable performance of Massenet’s great romantic tragedy Werther. Filmed live in January 2010, this performance stands out primarily for the great singing and dramatic vitality of the principals, particularly the remarkable Werther of Jonas Kaufmann. It is rare to hear a tenor voice with this much heft, body and color phrase…
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The blog GTL Torn T (which La Cieca assumes has something to do with gay teens in torn t-shirts) offers a sound clip from the prima of Adriana Lecouvreur at the Royal Opera. Very attractive stuff, though La Cieca must insist that she does not care for that concert ending on “La dolcissima effigie!”
I saw the final dress rehearsal of Adriana Lecouvreur at the Royal Opera House on Monday this week, and I think I have never seen the place so crowded for such an event. No wonder, for here was a cast you might dream of, in a highly finished piece of work mounted by one of…
Our Own Ercole Farnese discovered and translated this interview in La Stampa with Jonas Kaufmann, in which the tenor discusses his “his idolatrous success with ladies and gay men, four fifths of the opera-goers.”
“Das neue Traumpaar” offer a duet from a their recent joint role debuts.
Lovely, legendary, litigious Dame Kiri te Kanawa is among the distinguished divas and dudes of the lyric stage to be honored at the 2011 edition of The F. Paul Driscoll Awards for Outstanding Achivement in the Field of Excellence. Also tapped: maestro Riccardo Muti, soprano Patricia Racette, bass-baritone Bryn Terfel and tenor Jonas Kaufmann. The…
The premiere of Lohengrin at the Bayreuth Festival (starring, of course, Jonas Kaufmann) has just started. You can listen to the live broadcast here.
I’d never actually seen a production of Lohengrin before I agreed to review a new Decca DVD of Richard Jones‘s staging for the Bayerische Staastoper, starring Jonas Kaufmann, so I hope I’ve got this right: It’s about this architect named Elsa, who lives in an Orwellian steampunk Germany that has videocamera technology but still dresses like…
So, speaking of Jonas Kaufmann, who’s up for a chat during this afternoon’s webcast of Don Carlo at 1:00 pm? (Yes, I realize it’s not quite live, but it’s the most interesting offering La Cieca can see, and she received rapturous reports on the performance from a trusted colleague.) Details after the jump.
La Cieca’s delight at the success of her colleague The Omniscient Mussel is equaled only by her bitter envy for the success of her colleague The Omniscient Mussel. TOM, you see, has built upon the success of last year’s #operaplot competition by signing up a slew of new opera houses to offer prize packages for…
“Lights are brighter; the elegantly gowned Tosca no longer plops down on a filthy church floor — and police chief Scarpia’s Act 2 hooker four-way stops short of oral action.” [NYP]
Luc Bondy’s Tosca returned to the Met on Wednesday night with an entirely new set of principals and conductor. The new trio of principal singers, all making local role debuts, could not redirect and redesign the production but they could allow their individual talents to outshine their surroundings.
With all due respect to our charming new commenter Nina Munk, the difference between the Met and the Bavarian State Opera is not something that can be measured in dollars or euros. It’s more about aesthetic sensibility.
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