On her 90th birthday “Trove Thursday” presents the late great Belgian mezzo Rita Gorr parenting Régine Crespin in Massenet’s Hérodiade.
I think my love/hate relationship with Händel stems from the fact that during my early days as an operagoer there simply wasn’t any to hear.
“Trove Thursday” returns with an unbeatable combination: Janet Baker and Handel.
Sills at the peak of her powers and Handel’s 1743 secular oratorio make a perfect match.
It never occurred to me that each tape had to be individually dubbed or that others, maybe many, many others, might also be ordering tapes at the same time.
Back when I was a good boy, I told my parents that my goal in getting my first job was to earn money for college; however, my real motive was to make my secret wish come true—to be able to consort with “pirates.”
Who needs sets and costumes anyway?
His shaved head in striking contrast to his dark beard and glinting eyes, the implacable Tartar conqueror glowers at us from the CD cover, while the uncropped photo of countertenor Xavier Sabata (above) is even more disturbing, featuring his raised fist and forearm tightly wrapped in a leather belt.
Almost exactly twenty years after her auspicious Metropolitan Opera debut as the Fiakermilli in Arabella and a year following what she has claims was her final appearance on the operatic stage, Natalie Dessay returned Sunday afternoon to Lincoln Center—to sing opera.
Sunday afternoon’s intermittently involving concert performance of Handel’s Alcina at Carnegie Hall starred an unusually intense Joyce DiDonato as a powerful sorceress blinded by her romantic delusions.
Notable purveyor of mayhem and infanticide Medea has lately been missing from the local operatic scene, but Sunday afternoon sections of the recently renovated Alice Tully Hall were singed by Canadian soprano Dominique Labelle’s blazing incarnation of the Greek sorceress.
My impossible wish would be to hear one of the great castrati who dominated opera for most of the 18th century.
Probably no more than 100 gathered Tuesday in a curtained-off space in the lobby of NYC’s Gershwin Hotel to witness the North American premiere of Rodrigo by operamission.
Nearly 30 years after a Handel opera last played there, Carnegie Hall presented The English Concert opening a three-year opera-oratorio project on Sunday afternoon with Radamisto.
That’s what it must have been like in 1726 London when Handel composed Alessandro for perhaps the three most famous (and expensive) singers of the day.
As if last week’s survey wasn’t enough, a few more recent diva-recital disks remain worthy of attention particularly since they arrive from five front-rank singers.
Natalie Dessay coyly bares a breast on the cover of Virgin Classics’ new Giulio Cesare.
Press quotes on the back of this new release from EMI of Georges Bizet’s masterpiece promise ”a stylish and cliché-free Carmen” and on most fronts I think it’s a fair assessment.
The Underworld as corporate boardroom, Pluto a “suit,” the damned a bunch of clerks tapping away at laptops.
By the end of its 2012-13 season, the Met will have presented four HD transmissions in less than two years featuring countertenors in prominent roles.
I could feel my face (to say nothing of my spirits) sink as I opened an envelope from La Cieca containing a new Decca CD
to review.
Many American opera-lovers take the “Grand Tour”—a pilgrimage to Europe to attend opera at its great houses—Peter Grimes at the Royal Opera in London or Otello at La Scala in Milan, or perhaps for the more well-heeled a visit to the summer festivals of Glyndebourne, Salzburg or Aix-en-Provence.
I half-wanted to dislike it; my expectations were very low. Renée Fleming in the Baroque, after her very uncertain recent outings in bel canto! Let’s face it; this year, her Rossini (Armida) and Donizetti (Lucrezia Borgia) did not cover her in glory. How, at this HD relay on December 3, would she cope with Handel’s…
Joyce DiDonato enjoys the rare cachet of having three studio-recorded operas released in the past three years while other famous divas must be content with “just” DVDs. Although two of Renée Fleming’s Violettas have found their way onto video in less than five years (why??), “the people’s diva” has only recorded one studio opera in…
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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