Though, really, the young artists of the Merola Opera Program were more than alright in their annual showcase.
Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen shows that he’s at the top of a crowded pack of countertenors in two recent New York performances with Philharmonia Baroque.
Brett Dean‘s Of One Blood casts a well-trodden Tudor tale in a poignant, new light.
It would be difficult to find a better description for Ambroise Thomas’s newly-recovered Psyché, recently heard in a new recording from Palazzetto Bru Zane, than the one uttered by her suitors: “Charmante Psyché!”
Sherrill Milnes sits down with Brendan Latimer to talk about his life, career, and what he hopes to pass along to the next generation
Mady Mesplé’s voice has, sadly, become an acquired taste.
It may be blasphemy to admit—particularly this month—but usually I can either take or leave Donizetti’s serious operas. However, I love the composer in comic mode, so Chris’s Cache runs with that sentiment in offering three recordings of Don Pasquale.
Huw Montague Rendall’s new release Contemplation has been spinning in both my car and home players repeatedly for months now.
Lisette Oropesa, a product of the Metropolitan Opera Lindemann Young Artist Program, has not been seen much on the stage of the Met in recent seasons.
Earlier this month the opera world was stunned to learn of the death of Belgian soprano Jodie Devos who died of breast cancer at just 35, and Chris’s Cache remembers her with a broadcast from last November of Devos as Ophélie in Hamlet, her only US appearance.
This Sunday marked a muted return of the Richard Tucker Foundation Gala, which had the dubious distinction of the fourth edition not to feature a prizewinner and perhaps the first not to provide complete orchestral and choral accompaniment for its performers.
For Philadelphia opera lovers, October means the Giargiari Bel Canto Competition—a staple event for the Academy of Vocal Arts, and a pipeline for the public to discover some of their strongest resident artists.
If April is the cruelest month, it may be that spring’s arrival brings far too many things to do and see.
On this day in 1984, the Metropolitan Opera presented a new production of Zandonai’s Francesca da Rimini.
On Saturday at Alice Tully Hall, Julliard 415, the school’s top-flight period-instrument ensemble, was joined by students from the Marcus Institute for Vocal Arts and Juilliard Drama for a rare semi-staging of King Arthur.
Since April four wildly varied incarnations of Hamlet have been haunting New York City theaters; the most recent to arrive was Robert Icke’s chicly contemporary take on Shakespeare’s play which opened last week at the Park Avenue Armory.
It was Matthew Jocelyn’s libretto, with its disorientingly deconstructive approach to its source text, that gave Brett Dean’s Hamlet its identity.
Ms. Damrau unleashed a Blitzkrieg of charm upon her audience.
Since my previous CD round-up review the onslaught of solo recital disks of 18th century (and sometimes also 17th) vocal music has continued unabated.
While the formulaic nature of some of Rossini’s other operas can undermine his ability to balance bravura singing and playing with legitimate drama, a concert Maometto II proves, with what it offers as much as what it lacks, that the formula still works.
Lawrence Brownlee and Michael Spyres are two singers at the top of their game, as this concert showed, virtually peerless in music as punishing as it is pretty.
I’ll just note that Cameron and I listened separately; we didn’t compare notes; and on our own, came up with the same list of top three singers… none of whom were among the actual winners.
Nathan Hull was an operatic Quixote who did not go it alone, but inspired bands of optimists, giving proper employment to the many worthy New Yorkers mad enough to study voice and pleasure rare elsewhere to those of us thrilled to take it in.
South African Jacques Imbrailo’s high-lying baritone did much to highlight the lyrical possibilities of the title role of Hamlet, originally conceived for a tenor.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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