While it may not be top-tier Rossini, Teatro Nuovo’s mounting of Il turco in Italia is still good summer fun.
Die Entführung aus dem Serail boldly goes where no opera has gone before at Pacific Opera Project.
A North American debut of a respectable French Baroque ensemble, an ebullient presentation of La fille du régiment, and an afternoon soiree in Wine Country proved to be the hottest (yet affordable!) tickets around here this Summer.
A brilliant L’italiana in Algeri in Rome has Larry Wolff once again thinking about “singing Turks”
Joyce Guyer’s silvery soprano, impeccable musicianship and beguiling stage presence made her an invaluable member of the Met roster in the late 1990s and early 2000s, appearing most frequently in harmony with others in such assignments as Najade in Ariadne auf Naxos, Woglinde in Wagner’s Ring Cycle and as a Parsifal Flower Maiden.
Some of my blog‘s habitués (they do exist) will know that I sometimes quote the people around me at the opera.
Boston Lyric Opera’s shows, of late, are often going to war with their texts.
You can imagine my surprise at encountering an almost wholly traditional staging with one teensy difference.
Rachel Willis-Sørensen might be the greatest American soprano right now who doesn’t sing much in America.
Eagerly awaiting Met May Mozart Madness, Chris’s Cache presents a starry quintet of the master’s operas not being done next month.
The worst criticism perhaps was the gleeful Schadenfreude noting Edita’s voice wasn’t as under her command as it used to be.
This week’s Trove Thursday—Kodály’s Háry János in a 1955 RAI broadcast in Italian led by famed Hungarian conductor Ferenc Fricsay—may be a bit brief as C-19 finally arrived last week chez CC.
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.
The lovely English soprano Valerie Masterson turns 84 today, prompting Trove Thursday to present her in a pair of her specialties.
The Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions were one of the last events I attended in person in 2020. Now, one year on, the competition has returned, this time in an online format, and this time with an entirely new name: The Metropolitan Opera Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition, after the event’s new sponsors.
Ombra Compagna, out today on Pentatone, spotlights Lisette Oropesa in 10 of Mozart’s most challenging concert arias accompanied by Il Pomo d’Oro conducted by Antonello Manacorda.
Saturday marks the centenary of Julius Rudel’s birth which Trove Thursday celebrates with Le Coq d’or, Faust and Ariodante, a triple-bill showcasing his impressive versatility, featuring Beverly Sills and Norman Treigle, two of the most important artists he nurtured during his leadership of the New York City Opera.
Trove Thursday bids adieu to 2019 with Bizet’s rare La Jolie Fille de Perth with the enchanting Christiane Eda-Pierre as the heroine who survives her madness.
The Paris Opera assembled an all-French cast to stage arguably the most well-known example of opéra-ballet, Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Les Indes Galantes.
“Trove Thursday” turns to a quintet of baritone/bass voices: Matthias Goerne, Simon Keenlyside, Georg Nigl, Thomas Quasthoff and René Pape performing works by Pfitzner, Sibelius, Adams, Martin and Schubert.
Verdi’s Giovanna d’Arco in a rare NYC concert performance with Margaret Price, Carlo Bergonzi and Sherrill Milnes.
Diana Damrau‘s performance as Violetta was the work of a very ordinary artist, one susceptible to vocal flubs, poor intonation, and an all too banal approach operatic performance.
“Trove Thursday” offfers Joseph Martin Kraus’s superb Aeneas i Cartago, eller Dido och Aeneas—in Swedish!—starring a luminous Elisabeth Söderström as the doomed Queen.
Next, I asked Marko Mimica which basses he prefers to listen to on recordings.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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