I think Patanè did far more than just hold it together: he did full honor to Verdi.
Video Artists International brings us back to a time when opera was carried over the airwaves by great voices—and a tire company.
A strong revival of Falstaff at the Los Angeles Opera proves a fitting farewell vehicle for Music Director James Conlon.
SoCal goes Scandi in two recent concerts, with one featuring an appearance by Lise Davidsen.
Mascagni‘s Zanetto, a slight, Renaissance scene, gets a new recording from the Berlin Opera Group.
Grand Tier Grab Bag anticipates Elina Garanca‘s upcoming Zwischenfach pivot by sharing her in some other not-quite-mezzo repertoire opposite Brian Jagde.
Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci at Lyric Opera of Chicago are hysterical in all the wrong ways.
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.
A live video broadcast from the Verbier festival starring Bryn Terfel and Ying Fang
Les Brigands at the Paris Opera is an expensive joke that never lands
Daniele Rustioni leads a verismo double bill recorded in Munich last month
Giovanni Verga‘s short story (which he adapted as a play with Giuseppe Giacosa) provides the basis for Mascagni‘s famous opera.
Contrasting approaches to Regie duke it out in Cavalleria rusticana & Pagliacci and Rusalka in Munich
Following last week’s performances in Cleveland, Ronnie Banerjee compares six different versions of the Kostelnicka’s monologue from Leos Janácek’s Jenufa for “Perspectives on an Aria”
A grand concert from Angel Blue has Patrick Mack wondering, “where’s her crossover album?”
Judith Malafronte on firebrand pedagogues, the old-school singing manual revival, and what many voice teachers are getting wrong.
In a splashy new recording of Norma, Marina Rebeka “is doing something very untoward, and it appears destructive to her voice.” It has Niel Rishoi worried.
Patrick Mack on the iconic Ethan Mordden‘s career and his first book on opera in 30 years – and it appears that time has mostly stopped in the Mordden manse.
Chris’s Cache celebrates an “Easter in October” gala with five special pirate recordings of Cavalleria Rusticana from the Met featuring four prima donnas whose Santuzze never got a Saturday broadcast and one whose did: Giulietta Simionato, Fiorenza Cossotto, Régine Crespin, Rita Hunter and Mignon Dunn.
“In over nine years you’ve never posted an opera by Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari,” no one has ever said.
Doing my research for these “thoughts” ahead of a starry revival in London that opened yesterday, I came across the following review for the Opening Night of the 1962-63 Season.
In 1982 I saw Turandot at the San Francisco Opera, the year after I became an opera fan, and it was my first live opera.
Maria Callas’s official debut in opera was as La Gioconda in 1947 at the arena in Verona.
Amilcare Ponchielli’s La Gioconda might not be a perfect opera (though I don’t see why not) but it is one of my favorites…
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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