Ms. Guy goes into detail about what made Sills a “magic” performer, recounting reactions of people across an extraordinarily broad socio-economic spectrum who discovered their love of opera and singing through her.
The concert presented by Opera Lafayette at the Alliance Française last Friday and Saturday was devoted to music of witty, short-lived Emmanuel Chabrier, notably Une Éducation Manquée.
Bellini blossomed over us like a love fest.
Jarrett Ott is a star. That is the only surprise takeaway from the well-intended snore, Cold Mountain.
First seen in 2005, Siegfried makes a welcome return as a stand-alone production this season.
Washingtonians enjoyed a happy reunion this past Sunday with David Daniels.
Friday’s season premiere at the Met of Donizetti’s opera about the doomed Scottish queen proved surprisingly satisfying and a genuine success for Sondra Radvanovsky.
Live recordings of Hans Knappertsbusch conducting Parsifal seem to proliferate like stairways in M.C. Escher prints.
A woman reads from the Bible. There is a dance scene in a tavern. The discovery of blood gives away the protagonist.
Anna Moffo made some of the most entrancing records ever. Their appeal is to “voice fanciers.” (I understand. We’re a despised group.) But Moffo’s best work renders us helpless.
When Maestro Carlo Rizzi lifted his baton and began leading the Lyric Opera Orchestra in a stirring, detailed account of the overture to Nabucco, the electrified audience knew we were in for an exciting evening of music making.
A “lone voice in the wilderness” booed Barbara Frittoli’s calamitous Nedda.
New York City Opera has officially launched its “renaissance” at Lincoln Center’s Rose Theater last night with a production of Puccini’s Tosca that should please a lot of older, conservative audiences, if not the adventurous operagoers that City Opera courted in the past.
The Canadian Robert Carsen would appear to love the theater to the point of fixation.
Is Manon Lescaut a cold, clinical tale of the splendors and pitfalls of transactional sex, or is it a romantic Italian opera at its most lush and melodic?
Maria Agresta‘s delicately-acted, sumptuously-sung seamstress transformed what might have been just an average Wednesday night revival into something finer.
Returning after 99 years for the Met’s annual New Year’s Eve gala, Bizet’s youthful exercise in Orientalia Les Pêcheurs de Perles proved a real crowd-pleaser.
It would be generous to say that history comes alive on the operatic stage.
Fans of divas who sing 19th and 20th century opera may find themselves searching in vain for CDs to buy with this season’s gift cards, since their idols so rarely put out solo recitals these days.
Enthusiasm is contagious–you have to cover up carefully lest it make you sick.
Das Rheingold is the outlier among the Ring operas, an ensemble work with a fast-shifting plot, animated dialogue, fewer set pieces and less character development.
The most recent Egyptian voluptuary of 2006 by our friend Franco has now been replaced by the most singularly spartan production of Verdi’s masterpiece I think I’ve ever seen.
The sound of Joyce DiDonato, Lawrence Brownlee and John Osborn nailing La Donna del Lago’s thrilling second-act trio alone made worthwhile enduring one of the ugliest, most bone-headed productions seen at the Metropolitan Opera in many a year.
The name Joseph Rumshinsky might ring a bell (or a shofar).
Tell us: What’s your favorite Verdi performance?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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