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.
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.
To the extent that singers should be considered stewards of their repertoire, equating bad singing to whatever “verismo” is will only be to the detriment of verismo.
On this day in 1984, the Metropolitan Opera presented a new production of Zandonai’s Francesca da Rimini.
Chris’s Cache sends Renata Scotto a valentine ahead of her 89th birthday next week with rare in-house recordings of eight (!) mid-career performances spanning 1971-1977.
A troika of operas by Rachmaninoff: Aleko , The Miserly Knight and Francesca da Rimini , courtesy of Odyssey Opera.
The winners of the evening were the composer Riccardo Zandonai and Teatro Grattacielo which pulled off a near-impossible feat with success.
If you have not been following the exploits of Teatro Grattacielo during lockdown, it’s not because they haven’t been exploitatory all over the place.
Next month in Bergamo Plácido Domingo takes on his zillionth—and possibly final—new role, so Trove Thursday previews it by returning to the same venue 50 years earlier for Donizetti’s Belisario with Leyla Gencer and Renato Bruson, a real baritone as its titular hero.
Wagner must intrude at some point because he invented film music.
While Harry Rose finishes his senior thesis on Gabriele d’Annunzio, Trove Thursday joins in his fascination with Dante’s damned adulteress with two settings (both from Amsterdam!) of Francesca da Rimini.
The second summer session of the Russian Opera Workshop concludes this week with concert performances of Tchaikovsky’s Maid of Orleans.
“Trove Thursday” keeps the evil deeds going this All Saints’s Day with a vintage La Scala broadcast of Arrigo Boito’s only completed opera Mefistofele.
“Trove Thursday” offers due local Lombardi: one with Renata Scotto and José Carreras, the other with Aprile Millo and Carlo Bergonzi.
“Are we Team Guelf or Team Ghibelline?”
Norman Lebrecht reveals himself once more to be no observer at all.
If opera as a genre in justified in its claim to one particular story, history confirms that the Orpheus myth would be that story.
>Verdi’s marvelous yet neglected Luisa Miller finally returns to the Met later this month after an absence of a dozen years so “Trove Thursday” provides a preview.
Riccardo Zandoni’s Il Grillo del Focolare is an opera after all.
In March 1973, OONY’s second season featured Francesca da Rimini starring Raina Kabaivanska, Plácido Domingo and Matteo Manuguerra.
It’s time to add more legends to my Mixcloud site: Mario Del Monaco, Raina Kabaivanska, and Tito Gobbi star in this 1962 performance of Otello from Covent Garden led by Georg Solti.
“With radiant looks, we shall depart this world,” sing Konstanze and Belmonte near the end of Mozart’s exotic yet charming opera Singspiel Die Entführung aus dem Serail.
“I didn’t think anything could be campier than Adriana. But this is nothing but camp. Adriana at least has tunes.”
On this Gay Pride weekend, I remember my late friend Robert Chesley, activist and playwright (Stray Dog Story), who had also been an elementary schoolteacher.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
×
Sign up for Parterre’s free newsletter.
Exclusive opera reviews, commentary, and top reads
delivered to your email weekly…ish.