The women were the highlights of Washington National Opera’s militaristic Aïda
Daniele Rustioni, who starts his tenure as Met Principal Guest Conductor with Don Giovanni this week, might just be the opera conductor we’ve all been waiting for — and he’s betting on a long haul.
Lotte De Beer‘s astonishing reading of Aïda at the Paris Opera was a victim both of Covid and the culture wars.
Shirin Neshat‘s Aïda in Paris is a typical instance of what happens when an artist is brought in to direct an opera.
Grand Tier Grab Bag offers a face off of two Polish divas from Aleksandra Kurzak‘s debut performances as Aïda in Verona this summer.
Dmitry Matvienko led a performance of Mussorgsky and Shostakovich at La Monnaie with meticulous rectitude.
Brendan Latimer sits down with Francesca Zambello and members of the cast of Washington National Opera’s production of Aïda to discuss the complicated legacy of one of Verdi’s most beloved works and the tricky business of “inventing the truth.”
A recent review of Olga Maslova as Aïda is as good a reason as any to share a clip of her fascinating Turandot
Mexican soprano Gilda Cruz-Romo died on 28 June at the age of 85 and Chris’s Cache remembers her with live recordings of a frequent role and a rather rare one: a last-minute Met Tosca plus perhaps her only stab at the Cherubini Medea.
In the 1847 version of Macbeth, the forces of Teatro Nuovo lacked the thunderous punch this music can pack, but provided a pleasant ride
When such a canonically ossified work like Verdi’s Aïda is directed at all (let alone as ambitiously as Damiano Michieletto at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino), it does feel like a completely different opera
A starry concert Aïda in Baltimore proves unusually polished
Elina Garanca is back at the Met for the first time since 2020 — her Amneris is, in a word, sensational.
A grand concert from Angel Blue has Patrick Mack wondering, “where’s her crossover album?”
Christina Nilsson‘s debut enlivens the Met’s new Aïda.
It used to be proverbial on the Met Opera Quiz, usually quoted by quiz master Edward Downes: “If you can’t remember where a certain plot event occurs … it happens in La Gioconda.”
I had been hopeful that 2024 would end, if not on a high note, then one that was at least in tune.
If song recitals by opera stars Piotr Beczala and Asmik Grigorian sometimes came up short, Semyon Bychkov’s powerful rendition of the Glagolitic Mass instantly became one of the year’s highlights.
Anticipating the first new local Aïda in thirty-six years, Chris’s Cache revisits Verdi’s popular opera in four unusually interesting in-house recordings from the Met 1961-1976.
With Boston Lyric Opera’s largest opera production of the season already well behind us, the one-off semi-staged gala performance of Aïda held on Sunday at Emerson College’s Colonial Theatre to support the company’s vast education and community engagement apparatus, was a particularly enticing entry on the Boston cultural calendar.
Happy was I to attend the Celebrity Opera Series presentation Saturday night at BroadStage, mere blocks from my humble abode in Santa Monica as Anglela Gheorghiu was making an eagerly awaited return for the first time since her debut here in 2013.
As for complete recordings of Il trovatore, which was discussed at some length last week, there are at least 200 of them, both studio and live.
When asked to express some “thoughts” here about Verdi’s Il trovatore, my immediate thought was “hmm… not a lot to think about there.”
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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