Vittorio Grigolo has been suspended from the Royal Opera House’s touring production of Faust in Japan.
Last night was my fourth or fifth wade into the slough of Bartlett Sher’s production of Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann at the Met since its premiere in 2009.
No amount of scholarly diligence has kept Les contes d’Hoffmann from being the messiest of all standard-repertory messes.
I am, perhaps instinctively, skeptical of those who commit suicide.
As portrayed by Vittorio Grigolo, Nemorino was a manic self-absorbed, probably bipolar, stalker who—against all odds and good sense—gets the poor girl.
They were there, opera insiders said, because Chelsea Clinton is a friend of the tenor Vittorio Grigolo, who was playing the Chevalier, Manon’s true love.”
Our Own JJ‘s take on the Massenet will not appear until next week, but for now you are invited to make do with Zachary Woolfe‘s rave in the New York Times.
Vittorio Grigolo in the title role of the Met’s revival of Les Contes d’Hoffman is the opera version of the charming homeless drunk.
La bohème is such a popular romantic opera that hardly anyone ever notices that Mimì and Rodolfo undergo what in modern terms would be called speed dating.
When Norman Lebrecht is declaring on an almost daily basis that classical music is dead, it’s perhaps heartening that four of today’s prominent tenors have recently released what might be called fluff/vanity albums.
This afternoon at the Met, Grigolo sold his performance like the rent was due tomorrow and he was down to his last penny.
La Cieca alerts the cher public to be on the lookout for discounts and downright giveaways for the upcoming Vittorio Grigolo recital at the Met.
I never thought I’d see the day when Giuseppe Verdi and Benjamin Britten would battle it out for musical superiority but that’s exactly what happened in Los Angeles this year.
Ring a ding ding! There’s a new Duke in town, and he’s jolting the Met’s Rigoletto with enough electricity to light up the Las Vegas Strip.
La Cieca predicts you won’t be seeing any puritans at the Met next season, except of course for the ones who slouch around during intermission hissing, “You call that a trill?”
La Cieca has been sniffing around her generally reliable (and fragrant) sources, and she thinks she has pieced together a list of the dozen operas to be featured in the 2013-2014 season of “The Met: Live in HD.”
La Cieca’s spy in London reports: “So first Angela Gheorghiu cancelled this evening’s Traviata Faust at the ROH. On hearing the news, Vittorio Grigolo suddenly came down with a ‘chest infection’ —so the performance is going ahead with James Valenti and Malin Byström.”
“I saw the dress rehearsal of the Covent Garden Manon, and Vittorio had that metaphysical connection with the audience. I’m convinced of his potential.” [New York Times]
The entire new CD “The Italian Tenor” (featuring Vittorio Grigolo) may be heard here. (If it tickles your fancy, you may want to purchase a copy as well.)
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.
