Alexander Köpeczi, currently plying leading roles in two operas in Santa Fe and, rumor has it, the life of one prominent soprano, is the object of this week’s Grand Tier Grab Bag.
Zubin Mehta was a major part of musical life when I moved to Southern California in 1969, having started his tenure as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Fifty some years ago I stumbled on to John Barbirolli‘s recording of matchless Elgar & V-Williams music for strings and discovered my go-to conductor for life.
Giannina Arangi-Lombardi never sang at the Met.
John Danaher pays an operatic tribute to the writings of James McCourt, an author who captured the spirit of opera as queer and dangerous like no other.
Subtlety is for cowards, say the blazing Anita Cerquetti and the blaring Ebe Stignani.
After success at the Met as Turandot and before a historic Medea, soprano Anna Pirozzi talks to Harry Rose about her voice, her repertoire, and where her “second explosion of career” is taking her.
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s concert Rigoletto hits some vocal turbulence
A full century after her heyday, Argentine soprano Hina Spani still moves us thanks to her vivid recordings and the savants who have cherished and shared them.
Grand Tier Grab Bag this week honors the late Limmie Pulliam with a bit of his Verdi Requiem.
Anna Pirozzi makes a welcome return to the Metropolitan Opera, but Turandot remains as thorny as ever.
Christopher Corwin surveys the three Traviata casts — led by Lisette Oropesa, Rosa Feola, and Ermonela Jaho — at the Met this spring.
A well-known Met Aïda with a starry cast from 1967 is TildyDiva’s Favorite Verdi Performance
Grand Tier Grab Bag hearkens back to the days when Sondra Radvanovsky — who is singing no Verdi at all next season — seemed like the Verdi soprano of reference.
Vivacious performances outweigh a host of odd directorial choices in the Washington National Opera‘s
West Side Story
When I was a fledgling opera enthusiast, professors at a small-town Wisconsin college routinely travelled to Chicago for Lyric Opera performances.
Back-to-back casts in the Metropolitan Opera’s revivals of Madama Butterfly and La traviata offer ample opportunity for soprano-gazing.
Washington Concert Opera returned to its roots with a delightful performance of Georges Bizet’s Les Pêcheurs de perles.
Karajan’s 1959 Aïda was once treated like gospel, a wall of plush Vienna Philharmonic sound and star power that critics dutifully genuflected before.
Simon Boccanegra has never felt as foreboding or prophetic as it did at a recent performance at La Fenice.
Christina Nilsson‘s successful Met debut as Aïda was for me one of the shining highlights of the 2025 season.
“When there’s so much to get right, unsurprisingly a lot can and, as we all know, does go wrong.”
Austin Opera’s 40th anniversary gala celebrated the present while gesturing boldly towards the future.
Only the singers, led by Benjamin Bernheim, can salvage a dismal La Damnation de Faust at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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