Verdi’s Stiffelio goes Amish in Vienna, featuring a stellar Luciano Ganci in the title role.
In terms of elegance and beauty of execution, Renato Bruson is in a class by himself among Donizetti baritones.
I’ve argued with myself for many years as to which was my favorite opera by Giuseppe Verdi, La forza del destino or Don Carlos. The latter finally won out especially after studying it in depth, but in the long run, it is the music of Forza that I love the most.
Franco Corelli was born on April 8, 1921 in Ancona and Trove Thursday celebrates the matinee-idol tenor’s centenary with a pair of his rare non-Met US appearances; seducing Marie Collier in La Fanciulla del West and vacillating between Ilva Ligabue and Grace Bumbry in Il Trovatore.
For those pining for Puccini with the Met out of commission. Trove Thursday steps up with the composer’s brief first opera Le Villi with Krassimira Stoyanova, José Cura and Franz Grundheber, led by Simone Young.
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.
Otto Nicolai’s Il Templario with Juan Diego Flórez, Clémentine Margaine and Luca Salsi.
Trove Thursday presents Michael Fabiano in one of his specialties as the dashing hero of Il Corsaro torn between Tamara Wilson and Nicole Cabell.
Usually the longer I know a work the more I look forward to rediscovering it, but that’s just not the case with the Verdi Requiem.
Two operas both alike in dignity, set in dimly lit Renaissance towns ruled by seething, conspiratorial courts.
One of my adolescent pastimes was trolling the classical cut-out bins in record stores searching for overlooked gems or unfamiliar singers.
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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