At one time, the idea of a performance of La Gioconda conjured up images of over-the-top, competitive, passionate vocalism, and big personalities. As a vehicle for great singers (and especially a great protagonist), it was thrilling.
It’s kind of shocking, when you really think about it, that the kind of international operatic model that the Royal Opera now operates on barely existed only 50 years ago. Until around 1960 most of the performances at the Covent Garden were given in English and the casting choices were enough to make the Vicar […]
La Cieca’s looking for a few good commenters to join the exalted ranks of parterre reviewers of new CD and DVD releases. Care to apply? Read on after the jump.
Only because I am a member of the You Can Never Have Too Much Callas School of Opera Listening can I recommend EMI’s new release The Callas Effect. The beautifully packaged production is the size of a small paperback book and consists of two CDs with 29 arias sung by Callas plus a new 70-minute […]
Giovanni Simone Mayr was one of the most important musical figures of his day, a man Rossini referred to as the “father of Italian opera” whom Napoleon personally lobbied to come work in Paris. Though he wrote nearly 70 operas and taught Donizetti and Bellini, the Bavarian-born composer had the misfortune of hitting his peak […]
Now, it seems, OONY is returning to its star-driven roots.
It would be a shame, I think, if EMI’s stunt video of Angela Gheorghiu “in duet” with Maria Callas backfired powerfully enough to prevent serious opera fans (well, okay, let’s say “enthusiastic opera fans,” that’s more like it) from listening to the Romanian diva’s new CD Homage to Maria Callas. There’s a lot on this […]
When Mojca Erdmann’s new debut CD for Deutsche Grammophon was reviewed in the September issue of Opera News, the disc’s cover art showed the lissome German soprano in a thin, revealing white dress, lying on a bed of roses. The album was then called Mostly Mozart. When that review questioned the titling, DG must have […]
In the liner notes to his new Wagner CD, Rene Pape opines that performing the master’s work isn’t terribly different than performing Mozart. Both composers require singers to sustain a melodic line, manipulate vowels at the right moments and deploy dynamic gradations for dramatic effect. Call it German bel canto or natural speech, just don’t […]
With his new CD release for Decca, The Maltese Tenor, Joseph Calleja clearly declares his ascension to the top level of the world’s lyric tenors. The 15-selection program shows that his plaintive voice has matured and clarified, his emotional understanding of the music has deepened significantly, and his artistry has moved to a higher level. […]
“Hey the line forms, on the right dear / Now that Macheath’s back in town / You’d better lock your doors, and call the law / Because Macheath’s back in town.” So concludes Marc Blitzstein’s famous English translation of the song that opens Die Dreigroschenoper.
I’ll confess it. I am a bloodthirsty opera fan. I’m not above judging the quality of a work by the size of the body count at the finale. After sitting through Traviata or Boheme all evening I’m often disappointed when only one person dies in the last act. All the principals are dead at the […]
I would never have imagined that the story of Anna Nicole Smith could be today’s entry in a long line of opera’s “fallen women”—pop culture’s reinvention of Violetta, Manon Lescaut, and Lulu. But that is indeed what composer Mark-Anthony Turnage and librettist Richard Thomas have created in Anna Nicole, commissioned by England’s Royal Opera House […]
Deutsche Grammophon has a new hunk on the market, ignoring the fact that he’s been around for twenty years. Ildebrando d’Arcangelo has been steadily building a career since the early 90s, getting a reputation as a reliable, intelligent artist with a supple bass-baritone. He has a lengthy career of singing with the greats under his […]
Deutsche Grammophon has just released Anna Netrebko: Live at the Metropolitan Opera, a CD with 11 excerpts recorded live from her Met performances from 2002 through 2010. Released to feature the soprano just prior to her opening in the Met’s Anna Bolena, the CD features Netrebko singing solo arias as well as duets with such […]
I have been tossing and turning over La Cieca’s most recent assignment for me: a CD of Wagner’s Der Fliegende Holländer based on a performance live in concert from November 13, 2010. The anxiety mainly stems from the fact that, horror to say, I am no Wagnerite. I know that sect of opera buffs has […]
Every year New York City opera-lovers eagerly anticipate the autumn because it means that summer is finally over and we can get back to serious opera-going, and this September promises “The Battle of the A’s.”
A 1989 production of Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera should have been another jewel in Herbert von Karajan’s already quite impressive crown. A stellar cast, an impeccable orchestra, an enormous period set –the grand opera of Salzburg under his regime. He had recently finished a studio recording with the cast, and was preparing them for […]
In a post Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker, and Jerry Falwell era and with politicians spouting that natural disasters are God’s way of telling us to reduce the national debt, Sinclair Lewis’ Elmer Gantry seems more prescient than even he probably intended. A satirical novel about the excesses of the evangelical movement in the early part […]
Sony Classical, in association with The Metropolitan Opera, has begun issuing on CD a number of historic Met broadcasts, newly remastered. The first I received for review was the December 10, 1955 broadcast of Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera, perhaps most notable for the Ulrica of Marian Anderson, who earlier that year made her debut […]
“Gioia!” is the title of Aleksandra Kurzak‘s debut aria recital, her first international release under a new exclusive contract with Decca Music Group, and—not surprisingly—this writer’s response to the soprano’s sparkling vocalism. In the liner notes, the Polish soprano explains that the title of this recording was her agent’s suggestion: “He said that he can […]
Stefan Herheim’s production of Parsifal for Bayreuth is the regie Holy Grail—a production that completely fulfills the promise and purpose of Regietheater.
Noticing how often she turns up lately, one might guess that the operatic “heroine” for the global economic crunch is Medea, the mythological Greek sorceress and filicide.
Robert Schumann said he devoted more love and energy to Manfred than any of his other compositions. It took him only about a month in 1848 to adapt a translation of Byron’s semi-autobiographical poem about a guilt-ridden noble into a program consisting of an overture and 15 pieces for chorus, orchestra and spoken voice. Schumann was […]
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