The sonic wizards of the Netherlands at Pentatone have released their latest in the series of Maestro Lawrence Foster’s studio opera recordings. Reunited with his Lisbon forces, the Gulbenkian Orquestra and Coro, for a fresh take on Puccini’s three-hanky weeper.
Tell us: What was the best of 2025?
Parterre Box concludes the thrilling first year of Talk of the Town by inviting your lightning rod opinions on several more categories of operatic argumentation.
“It’s like your nightmare Tinder date where if the guy doesn’t know the answer he gets his head cut off.”
There is a self-effacing quality to Jonas Kaufmann’s concert film An Evening with Puccini.
A woman reads from the Bible. There is a dance scene in a tavern. The discovery of blood gives away the protagonist.
La Cieca’s favorite Puccini opera premiered exactly 100 years ago tonight!
Just because the Met’s production of La rondine is on hiatus at the moment doesn’t mean we have to go without our regular ration of Angela Gheorghiu. Here is The Elusive One herself with jummy Jonas Kaufmann among others in a documentary of last summer’s recording sessions for a new EMI recording of Madama Butterfly.…
J’ai un ami, JJ, qui m’a raconté cette mise en scène de La rondine dans Gay City News.
Those of you cher public who ordered and enjoyed Decca’s bargain Wagner box may now be interested in a bargain Puccini edition offered by EMI. The set, Puccini: The Operas, retails for $59.98 (less than four bucks a disc) and includes complete performances of:Â
Not Tosca, of course, cher public — La Cieca could never say that about her dear, dear Tosca. But it does seem both shabby and shocking that the combined forces of The New York Philharmonic and Charles Zachary Bornstein, the Philharmonic’s Leonard Bernstein Scholar-in-Residence would not at the very least ask for a retake of…
Member of the cher public Max writes: Don’t know if you’ve gotten reports on this yet, but Jonas Kaufmann‘s Cavaradossi at the Royal Opera (May 23) was singing like I haven’t heard since young Domingo (only Domingo never had that kind of ease on top). You could feel the waves of sound from his “Vittoria”…
Flash phenomenon Izzy Anderson returns with an all-new choice of repertoire, and La Cieca has the exclusive. In fact, your doyenne’s old, old, old friend Wenarto created two variant versions of Izzy’s aria, and La Cieca was hard-pressed (ahem!) to choose between them. True, the take seen below features far better singing, but in the…
