C-major has made available the first DVD/Blu-ray of Franco Faccio’s Amleto.
At yesterday’s recital at the Morgan Library, Leah Crocetto sang as her encore Kern and Hammerstein’s “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man.”
The tendency to rank—to create subjective lists of best or greatest, or to organize things in ascending or descending order—is a human compulsion.
Arabella with Wolfgang Sawallisch conducting a prime-time 1980s Munich cast.
No amount of scholarly diligence has kept Les contes d’Hoffmann from being the messiest of all standard-repertory messes.
Aida certainly has its longueurs.
Today’s offering is an electric performance of Verdi’s early potboiler Attila conducted by Giuseppe Sinopoli.
Endlessly extricating her from existing contracts then negotiating new ones must make being Sonya Yoncheva’s manager the hardest job in the music business.
A live Un Ballo in Maschera featuring Jon Vickers, Amy Shuard, Lucia Popp, Shirley Verrett and Peter Glossop.
Anticipation of events like the Metropolitan Opera’s 50th Anniversary bash turns me back into the newly opera-soused kid who begged his parents to let him watch the highlights of the Bing Gala on the family color television.
Mr. Fabiano proceeded to pour gasoline over the audience and toss a lit match into the crowd with his rendition of “Granada.”
Revive is a manifesto of sorts, declaring Elina Garanca’s intentions for the new direction in her career.
In our circle, Mexico City in the summer was the opera capital of the world from the late 1940s and early 1950.
“Take a good deal of trouble with it, because it is a fine subject, delicate and full of pathos.”
The Teatro di San Carlo in Naples is a pearl itself and this presentation proffers some of the best that company has to offer.
That little place just two hours from the city is on the list of things I shall never understand, like the plot of Parsifal.
This week, I offer you a classic rendition of Richard Strauss’ tale of the House of Atreus starring Ursula Schröder-Feinen, Astrid Varnay, Leonie Rysanek, Theo Adam, and Hans Hopf under Karl Böhm’s direction.
“Has anyone ever seen a truly great production of this opera?”
The grand illusion is that we know it all. From four hundred years of opera, we’ve distilled the worthy survivors.
That Placido Domingo and James Levine, the Met’s inexorable septuagenarians, would team up yet again—on April Fools’ Day, no less—for a revival of Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra occasioned an uncomfortable degree of doubt and dread.
With February 14th falling on a Sunday, there will be no Valentine’s Day Met performance this year.
A “lone voice in the wilderness” booed Barbara Frittoli’s calamitous Nedda.
Mounting Verdi’s French grand operas in their original language is no longer as unusual as it once was.
Between them, Maria Guleghina, Marcello Giordani, James Morris and John Del Carlo have nearly 150 combined years of service on stage.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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