Maria Callas’s most outstanding Adalgisa, out of all she partnered with, was Fiorenza Cossotto.
I clearly remember the day I first heard the voice of Cesare Siepi.
Sir David McVicar’s inept and dreary new production of Bellini’s Norma proved to be more satisfying than it had been on opening night when it returned to the Met Friday evening thanks to its new leading ladies Angela Meade and Jamie Barton
Psychology is encoded in the composer’s vocal lines more than his librettist’s words.
Vincenzo Bellini’s La Straniera was presented at George Washington University’s dreary Lisner Hall on Sunday.
I first went bonkers for Bellini’s masterpiece during the previous century when the Met remounted it for Joan Sutherland.
“Trove Thursday” offers Gemma di Vergy with the lovely, largely now forgotten Adriana Maliponte in the title role.
Will Crutchfield’s Bel Canto at Caramoor program of concert operas concluded with a bang on Saturday with Bellini’s first success, Il Pirata.
Diana Damrau has chosen for her new Erato recital disc Grand Opera 11 high-flying showpieces from ten operas by Giacomo Meyerbeer.
In our circle, Mexico City in the summer was the opera capital of the world from the late 1940s and early 1950.
The UK’s first-ever production of Poliuto, now available from Opus Arte on DVD, set the lions of Rome among the lambs of Glyndebourne.
Shirley Verrett remains one of my all-time favorite artists, and I am pleased to introduce her to my Mixcloud site in one of her parade roles: the femme fatale in Saint-Saëns’ Samson et Dalila.
This season’s Met Donizetti Tudor Trilogy concluded with Roberto Devereux, given its penultimate performance by HD transmission Saturday, April 16. It is good to see these works finally given here; they are too important, too crucial a part of the operatic repertory to have been ignored for as long as they have.
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.
Saturday evening conductor Will Crutchfield revived Donizetti’s La Favorite—unheard in New York for fifteen years.
Imagine two tenors releasing French opera aria collections at the same time without duplicating a single track!
With much laying-on of fanfares and gift boxes our friends at Decca Classics have unleashed Luciano Pavarotti Edition 1: The First Decade on a weary and satiated public.
Coming as Peter Gelb did from the music industry, opera lovers hoped that he would display a more distinctive knack for casting and an improved talent pipeline than Joe Volpe offered during the waning years of his tenure.
When Norman Lebrecht is declaring on an almost daily basis that classical music is dead, it’s perhaps heartening that four of today’s prominent tenors have recently released what might be called fluff/vanity albums.
Apparently, we learn very little in life; the follies we pursue with haste in youth are answered by the follies we commit in age with great deliberation.
La Cieca has just heard that the legendary basso cantante, star of well over 400 performances at the Met, died earlier today in Atlanta.
Since I had already gotten my Hanukah gift this year (my Nikon D3000 DSLR), I was surprised to receive a box from my sister this past week. One of the gifts inside was Les Urnes de l’Opera, a collection of arias and scenes recorded shortly after the turn of the last century and buried in…
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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