Patrick Mack looks back on “a great, nay, historic evening,” Renata Scotto‘s 1981 performance of Il trittico, now newly available on Met Opera on Demand.
The American bass, a fixture of the Metropolitan Opera between 1967 and 2018, was 83.
Despite the practically unmitigated fiasco of the last Verdi concert opera performance seen in Boston, I approached Sunday’s Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras performance of Don Carlo at Harvard’s Sanders Theatre with much more optimism.
In 2011, Sondra Radvanovsky‘s Tosca proved promising; fourteen years later, it was absolutely magnificent, a completely satisfying musical and dramatic embodiment of a challenging role by an artist at the peak of her powers.
Washington National Opera’s second full-run offering of the season, a new production of Verdi’s perennially appealing Macbeth, premiered last Wednesday at the Kennedy Center.
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.
Inspired by Harry Rose’s recent fine polemic about verismo performance practice, Chris’s Cache offers one of Opera Orchestra of New York’s most exciting evenings: Zandonai’s Francesda da Rimini from 1973 with Raina Kabaivanska, Placido Domingo, and Matteo Manuguerra.
When asked to express some “thoughts” here about Verdi’s Il trovatore, my immediate thought was “hmm… not a lot to think about there.”
Judith Malafronte sits down with bass David Leigh who debuts as Rocco in Washington National Opera’s production of Fidelio next week
The Metropolitan Opera chose the early August operatic doldrums in NYC to announce the renewal of Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s contract as music director through the 2029-30 season.
I’m old enough to remember when Yannick Nézet-Séguin could do no wrong.
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.
Matthew Polenzani strode into the Park Avenue Armory’s Board of Officers Room last Monday evening and was received like a beloved friend–and indeed that is what he is to many of New York’s opera-goers.
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.
As said at the beginning, I implied I’d rather see Don Carlo(s) and listen to Forza.
Following the composition of Un ballo in maschera, Verdi had gone into a self-imposed retirement, at least musically; he had not composed a note in four years.
I’ve argued with myself for many years as to which was my favorite opera by Giuseppe Verdi, La forza del destino or Don Carlos. The latter finally won out especially after studying it in depth, but in the long run, it is the music of Forza that I love the most.
Nothing says “diva” like an insane recital program.
The whole performance was reminiscent of long-forgotten ways of doing opera (ways which still find the full approval of an Italian public tired of proposals that are all too “experimental”)
A revival of Peter Konwitschny’s rightly legendary Don Carlos and Dmitri Tcherniakov’s confounding new Salome: both turned out to be unforgettable!
On February 10 of this year was the 100th anniversary of the birth of the great Italian basso Cesare Siepi. I found that this milestone was scarcely noted in the opera press.
In sum: not a perfect Simon Boccanegra—is there such a thing?—but a grand and often great one.
This week Chris’s Cache features Maria Chiara, Elena Mauti-Nunziata, Rita Orlandi-Malaspina and Orianna Santunione in L’Amico Fritz, Mefistofele, Simon Boccanegra and La Fanciulla del West, respectively.
Today’s Chris’s Cache features live recordings of Otello most noteworthy for their Desdemonas: (in chronological order) Teresa Stratas, Julia Varady, Eva Marton and Karita Mattila.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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