For those with Odyssey fever, this week’s Grand Tier Grab Bag item features a performance of another ancient epic: Les Troyens with Russell Thomas.
Elina Garanča’s aborted first Ariadne may have been the headline item at the Salzburg Festival next month, but this week Parterre Box features the Zerbinetta, Ziyi Dai.
Ahead of his new production of Die Frau ohne Schatten, Barrie Kosky chats with Kevin Ng in Aix about pretty much everything — except the details of his new Frau.
The Bronx Opera‘s Ariadnes auf Naxos is well worth the subway ride. Plus, two strong premieres at the Brooklyn Art Song Society.
Samantha Hankey’s Composer is the standout in the Wiener Staatsoper’s episodically sublime Ariadne auf Naxos revival.
Shirin Neshat‘s Aïda in Paris is a typical instance of what happens when an artist is brought in to direct an opera.
I’d never heard Götterdämmerung in a live performance until 1985 at The Dallas Opera. OMG, so long ago!
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 a satanic panic, this week Chris’s Cache presents trio of performances of Mefistofele
It may be blasphemy to admit—particularly this month—but usually I can either take or leave Donizetti’s serious operas. However, I love the composer in comic mode, so Chris’s Cache runs with that sentiment in offering three recordings of Don Pasquale.
Not even howling winds and thunderous rain could dampen the excitement of Bay Area audiences to experience Norwegian soprano Lise Davidsen for the first time in the Bay Area at Zellerbach Hall Berkeley last Tuesday, 4 February.
Later this month the Met at last revives its striking Herbert Wernicke production of Die Frau ohne Schatten, prompting a Chris’s Cache preview of three live recordings of Strauss and Hofmannsthal’s fanciful if knotty masterpiece.
Following Gundula Janowitz and Janet Baker, Chris’s Cache sends birthday greetings to another favorite diva—Karita Matilla—with a quartet of broadcasts.
The outdoor recitals that the Metropolitan Opera presents in New York City Parks every summer are a wonderful way to showcase rising young stars and promising beginners from the Met’s Lindemann Program.
I watched the finals for this year’s George and Nora London Foundation competition and would like to offer, if not a traditional review, a brief roundup of who I found exceptionally watchable and whom I think you, dear parterre boxers, should watch out for in the next few years.
Chris’s Cache wraps up November with Régine Crespin’s Chicago Leonore; two rare Met Fidelios headed by Christa Ludwig and Hildegard Behrens; and a concert performance with Birgit Nilsson led by Leonard Bernstein, plus a final twist: excerpts of Carol Vaness in Leonore.
After attending three Met Lohengrins I’ve gone into Wagner withdrawal waiting for the upcoming Der Fliegende Holländer.
Welcome, beloveds, to the Jessye Norman Memorial Museum. I’ll be the docent for your tour today.
The current Met revival of Der Rosenkavalier, while not perfect, has much to feel joyful and excited about.
Edita Gruberova considered her greatest pride and loves not her career but her daughters Klaudia and Barbara and grandchildren Cris, Denis, and Alyssa.
Trove Thursday previews next week’s BBC Proms presentation of Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius with a 2008 broadcast conducted by Colin Davis with Sarah Connolly, Ben Heppner and Gerald Finley.
To conclude its triumphant season, last week the Met Orchestra performed its annual Carnegie Hall concerts under music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin and once again performed superbly.
Trove Thursday’s belated contribution to last weekend’s Platinum Jubilee is a broadcast from Aldeburgh of Benjamin Britten’s Gloriana with Christine Brewer and Tom Randle as Elizabeth and Essex, an opera which premiered 69 years ago yesterday.
A Trove Thursday Mega-Post © featuring the wonderful American soprano Erin Morley in Orff’s Carmina Burana and Richard Strauss’s Brentano Lieder, plus extended live excerpts from Handel’s Orlando, Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail, and Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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