A convocation of mezzos–and a pride of tenors–produce hundreds of sixteenth notes in a bewitching Rossini showpiece
To get right to the point, the performance did not come together despite some good elements and was a major missed opportunity.
I hate to say I nearly cringe at the thought of Gioachino Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia.
Last Wednesday the 92nd Street Y presented the friendliest-ever episode of American Gladiators when Lawrence Brownlee and Michael Spyres continued their bel canto bromance with a delirious (almost) all-Rossini recital accompanied by Myra Huang.
Live opera returns to Lincoln Center when Teatro Nuovo presents Il Barbiere di Siviglia on July 27 and 28.
The lovely English soprano Valerie Masterson turns 84 today, prompting Trove Thursday to present her in a pair of her specialties.
Come ye addicts of melody! After long eclipse, Bel Canto shines again!
A conversation with maestro Gil Rose of Odyssey Opera.
Zelmira, a work of 1822, was the last of the eight operas Rossini composed for the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, then the largest opera house in Italy—perhaps in Europe.
I just arrived back from Stella di Napoli’s.
Everything about Aleksandra Kurzak’s new disc
is a variation on the term “fioritura.”
By the time Rossini was 20, he had produced six operas, most of them brief, comic and slight. He admitted to admiring Mozart (not then well known south of the Alps), but the melodies of his early works show more of the influence of Paisiello.
Joyce Di Donato‘s latest release is a CD entirely devoted to music Rossini composed for his first wife, Isabella Colbran, one of the most celebrated divas of the early 19th century.
Leyla Gencer: The very name is exotic. She was an artist of Turkish ancestry who, during the 1950s and 60s, held her own despite the presence of Maria Callas, Renata Tebaldi, Renata Scotto, Montserrat Caballe, and Magda Olivero, all of whom shared roles in her repertoire. Ironically, Gencer has a number of important credits attached…
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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