I’m happy to report that Rigoletto from the 30 DVD Tutto Verdi set from the Teatro Regio di Parma is a blockbuster
.
Between Fidelio and Der Freischutz there was “Romantische Oper,” a type of musical drama descended from medieval mystery plays in which ghosts, gnomes and other “invisibles” get entangled in the lives of unsuspecting people.
If you’re a hard-core opera buff who finds the Met’s flashy sets and costumes distracting, have I got a show for you!
Everything about Aleksandra Kurzak’s new disc
is a variation on the term “fioritura.”
Of all of Verdi’s operas. Aida is the one I find least interesting dramatically.
The Tutto Verdi series from the Teatro Regio Parma may be said to relate to the great Giuseppe Verdi’s oeuvre as the burning of the library at Alexandria did to classical literature.
Could Marek Janowski do for Wagner what the early music movement did for the Baroque and Classical repertory?
Name a Verdi opera, based on a play by Voltaire, described in the immortal words of the composer as “Questo e proprio brutto.”
Ailyn Pèrez is a soprano on the rise.
Christian Thielemann has proved himself to be the preeminent Strauss interpreter of the current generation of conductors and he’s in striking form here.
When I acquire DVDs of opera performances, I look for performances which truly merit a video recording; performances in which the totality of the musical and dramatic elements are worth preserving for repeated viewing.
Morningside Opera’s ¡Figaro! (90210) is a staging/translation (into English, Spanish, et al.) of Le Nozze as if in contemporary Beverly Hills (as if!), and it’s playing at the NSD Theater on Bank Street near the Meatpacking District through next Sunday.
In August 1845 Alexandre Dumas fils ended his brief but passionate affair with Parisian courtesan Marie Duplessis. He sent her a bitter letter that is often quoted in program notes about La Traviata.
In an ever-changing world it’s comforting to know that the Parmigiani of the Teatro Regio continue their campaign through the Verdi canon not unlike the Allied Forces’ rout of the Germans at the beginning of 1945.
Probably no more than 100 gathered Tuesday in a curtained-off space in the lobby of NYC’s Gershwin Hotel to witness the North American premiere of Rodrigo by operamission.
Just like the pyrotechnics the heroine of The Firework Maker’s Daughter longs to create, this new opera for children is a delightful, low-tech throwback to a time before CGI took over the world.
The most sensuous sounds at the Met this week come from an opera with nary a love duet.
In Leos Janacek’s The Cunning Little Vixen, the heroine is shot and skinned for her fur.
A last minute scheduling conflict at the New York Post (curse you, Tony season!) meant that my planned review of Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny at Manhattan School of Music had to be 86ed.
De Nederlandse Opera’s remarkable 2011 feat of premiering productions of Gluck’s Iphigénie en Aulide and Iphigénie en Tauride on the same day and virtually the same set has been issued on a 2-DVD set by Opus Arte
.
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s only opera for Rome was written to an existing libretto by the great Pietro Metastasio, L’Olimpiade, which had already been set by Vivaldi the year previously.
Bollywood dance numbers, kung fu fighting, simulated nudity — and rock-solid musical values — added up to a sterling Giulio Cesare at at the Met.
“I’ve lived with mendacity!—Why can’t you live with it? Hell, you got to live with it, there’s nothing else to live with except mendacity, is there?”
The best joke in Offenbach’s delicious Orphée aux Enfers is the opening premise: Orphée and Eurydice are miserably married, due to her utter boredom with his old-fashioned music.
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.
