Beg. Borrow. Steal. Bargain. Cajole. Seduce. Threaten. Extort.
What is opera for if not to commemorate a national epic tragedy and triumph?
Beauteous Trinidadian soprano Jeanine De Bique appeared Sunday afternoon with the visiting Budapest Festival Orchestra under Ivan Fischer.
Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Die Tote Stadt in a 1967 Vienna broadcast appropriately featuring three American stars: John Alexander, Marilyn Zschau, and George London.
Brigitte Fassbaender‘s sound is piquant and, I’d hazard to guess, instantly recognizable to anyone familiar with her work.
At the Metropolitan Opera on Saturday night, Mozart’s opera never sounded fresher, a superstar cast shining new light on one of the composer’s all-too-seldom-performed scores.
“Trove Thursday” offers Mozart’s late opera seria in a Paris “pirate” featuring the high-voltage diva-duo of Anna Caterina Antonacci and Elina Garanca.
Russell Thomas’s opening aria, “Del piu sublime soglio” displayed an intense attention to the text and some surprisingly beautiful piano phrasing that I’ve never heard risked before and it brought wonder and gooseflesh.
I was shocked to realize I hadn’t seen Don Giovanni at the Met since Michael Grandage’s stultifying production opened in 2011.
August on “Trove Thursday” begins with Midsummer Mezzo Madness featuring a sterling quartet of lower-voiced ladies
I was extraordinarily happy Monday evening to encounter Angel Blue and Russell Thomas as Mimi and Rodolfo.
Arabella with Wolfgang Sawallisch conducting a prime-time 1980s Munich cast.
This week’s “Trove Thursday” offers Benjamin Britten’s Death in Venice featuring Anthony Rolfe Johnson.
Endlessly extricating her from existing contracts then negotiating new ones must make being Sonya Yoncheva’s manager the hardest job in the music business.
The unevenly-beating Heart unfortunately proved less than the sum of its deluxe parts.
“Has anyone ever seen a truly great production of this opera?”
During its first-ever Roberto Devereux Thursday evening one felt transported back to the Volpe years: four of the Met’s biggest stars shining in an opulent (if occasionally perverse) but reassuringly non-challenging production paid for by Sybil B. Harrington.
The wonderful Spanish mezzo Teresa Berganza celebrates her 81st birthday next week and “Trove Thursday” gets the party started.
A 1984 performance of Handel’s Orlando with Marilyn Horne, Valerie Masterson, Marvis Martin, Jeffery Gall and Robert Lloyd, conducted by Charles Mackerras.
A “lone voice in the wilderness” booed Barbara Frittoli’s calamitous Nedda.
Fans of divas who sing 19th and 20th century opera may find themselves searching in vain for CDs to buy with this season’s gift cards, since their idols so rarely put out solo recitals these days.
Although she began her career nearly 25 years ago recording and performing lots of baroque music, I was surprised to see German soprano Dorothea Röschmann promoted as the star attraction of an all-Purcell concert Sunday at Carnegie Hall.
The Metropolitan Opera yesterday afternoon was an uncommonly cozy place, as the auditorium was packed to the rafters with friends and family members of the nine National Council Audition Finalists.
Karita Mattila is a gift to this planet.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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