The Met has finally released the contents of the James Levine 40th Anniversary box sets separately for those of us who didn’t have $500 lying around.
It’s hard to think of a rare work by a great composer more tailor-made for a twenty-first century reexamination than Mozart’s Il Sogno di Scipione.
Daniel Barenboim does not want to conduct Berg’s Lulu. Or so it seems.
There’s nothing like a good performance of Verdi’s Macbeth and here is proof positive because this dvd is (almost) nothing like a good performance.
Nicholas Hytner’s much-travelled and well received 1985 production of George Frideric Handel’s 1738 opera Xerxes has been released on DVD
from Arthaus Musik, in a performance recorded live from the English National Opera in 1988.
Certain contemporary opera directors have taken to portraying Wagner protagonists as visual artists to better illuminate the characters’ moral and aesthetic struggles.
When the hard-partying heroine of Massenet’s Manon hits bottom, she literally lands in the gutter.
Another grim narrative of the Gelb years, and one I think is generally hogwash, is that the Met has (at least in theatrical terms) lost its way entirely.
If it wasn’t anything special as art or even entertainment, Lyric Opera of Chicago’s recent production of Rinaldo (March 24) does offer an excellent peg on which to hang an argument about the future of opera in America.
I have been a devotee of Berlioz’s Les Troyens since I first discovered the Covent Garden recording conducted by Colin Davis.
When Verdi’s Macbeth returned to the Met Thursday night, miscasting doomed the revival as surely as any witch’s curse.
The symbolism and themes of suffering and redemption in Parsifal have provided catnip for more than a few oddball stagings filled with Regie excesses.
Apparently, opera fans got the bright side of the bargain: say “Macbeth” in the theater and you court cataclysm; utter the name in the opera house and, as often as not, you merely predict disappointment.
By the end of its 2012-13 season, the Met will have presented four HD transmissions in less than two years featuring countertenors in prominent roles.
When I first watched the DVD Hvorostovsky in Moscow with guest star Sondra Radvanosky, I was absolutely amazed at the superb quality of the singing.
The case for this DVD production of Puccini’s La Boheme from Opera Australia is all about the “inspired concept” of director Gale Edwards to move this oft-told tale from 1840’s Paris all the way to the Berlin at the end of Weimar-era Germany. Hmmm.
Let’s start with some refreshing news: Poèmes is the finest thing Renée Fleming has recorded in many a season.
L’elisir d’amore, Donizetti’s evergreen comedy about young love, returned to the Met last night with a strong cast, a high energy level from all the performers, and last but not least, a very full house.
Being an opera lover in Los Angeles is a lot like being a Red Sox fan. As hard as they try we never make it to the World Series, let alone the playoffs.
It is hard to know just who is the intended audience for this release of Pelléas and Mélisande.
“With Anjelica Huston, Parker Posey and Yoko Ono dotting the crowd at BAM Sunday afternoon, the New York City Opera’s premiere of Prima Donna offered more diva presence offstage than on.”
On Saturday I attended the premiere performance of a new production of Ariadne auf Naxos at the Festspielhaus in Baden-Baden, Germany. It was Renée Fleming’s debut in the title role…
This 2010 DVD
of Brecht and Weill’s Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny from Madrid assumes pride of place among the available video versions of the opera.
“New York City Opera performed La Traviata at BAM Sunday afternoon. That’s who, what, where and when. But this was a performance without a ‘why’.”
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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