He plays the violin
This Bard production, led by Leon Botstein, makes the strongest possible case musically, dramatically and visually for Smetana’s opera Dalibor.
Dalibor
12 pieces since 2014.
12
pieces
13
years
Come on, baby, and rescue me
In Smetana‘s Dalibor, a rescue opera and a nationalistic fable collide at this year’s SummerScape Festival
Se non è vero, è ben ‘Trovatore’
Chris’s Cache offers up a quintet of intriguing “forgotten” Leonora-Azucena pairings from the 1970s.
The future’s so bright
For this, the 250th edition of Trove Thursday, [hold for applause] a broadcast of a memorable evening at Carnegie Hall—and I was there: Smetana’s stirring Libuse, the Czech national opera, with a transcendent Gabriela Benackova as its titular prophetess.
Give me the Templar life
Otto Nicolai’s Il Templario with Juan Diego Flórez, Clémentine Margaine and Luca Salsi.
Thousands cheer
Although Gustav Mahler never wrote an opera, his colossal Eighth Symphony “The Symphony of a Thousand” may give us some glimpses of what a Mahler opera might have sounded like
A past recaptured
The New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players (NYGASP to its friends) is giving Sullivan’s most operatic score a dusting off (or should one say dusting-up?) at the Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College.
Double cross
“Trove Thursday” offers due local Lombardi: one with Renata Scotto and José Carreras, the other with Aprile Millo and Carlo Bergonzi.
Do get me wrong
Celebrating its third anniversary and next week’s Met opening, “Trove Thursday” offers a sumptuous banquet of the third and final chapter of divas in the “wrong language.”
Steal me, sweet thieves
Ali Baba ou Les Quarantes Voleurs continues straight-tone September with Teresa Stich-Randall as its heroine while Alfredo Kraus scales the heights with another Nadir.
As on through the seasons we sail
Trove Thursday looks forward to spring via Haydn’s beguiling oratorio Die Jahreszeiten (The Seasons) in a splendid rendition from the 1981 Salzburg Festival with Ileana Cotrubas, Francisco Araiza and José van Dam, James Levine conducting.
Rescue me
Fidelio but with an unhappy ending, Bedrich Smetana’s stirring Dalibor opens 2016’s “Trove Thursday” in a 1968 German-language broadcast from Bavarian Radio.
Victorious, happy and glorious
Even before Italian diva Mariella Devia had completed the stunning high D natural that capped her miraculous portrayal of Elisabetta in Donizetti’s Roberto Devereux Thursday evening at Carnegie Hall, tens, then hundreds of those in attendance leapt to their feet to shout their acclaim.
I’ll take the fall
The days are getting shorter, but you can keep the prattle going this fall’s Talk of the Town! You will, you can, you must join in the discussion about: Great mezzo soprano performances (October),
Gained in translation (November), Teleport me back to… (December).