Too young to be in love. But not too young to go to war or to die.
As one can see from the chronology published earlier this year, the American Opera Society, in addition to reviving a number of now familiar operas, introduced many singers who became important local figures; however, there were shooting-star exceptions like today’s Trove Thursday offering of d’Albert’s Tiefland featuring Angeles Gulin and Ion Buzea.
In an era when the Metropolitan Opera cannot cast an Aida, Trovatore or Forza consistently, New Amsterdam Opera managed to cast large, attractive and fully technically capable voices in all the cruelly demanding principal roles in I Vespri Siciliani!
Last night, for the first time in nearly a year and a half, opera returned to Lincoln Center.
Off-and-on since last fall my PPP (Personal Pandemic Project) has been assembling a chronology of the American Opera Society. For 19 years beginning in 1951 it presented a remarkable series of concert performances of works unperformed by either the Met or New York City Opera.
For nearly 70 years, New York City was the world capital of concert opera thanks first to the American Opera Society, then to Eve Queler’s Opera Orchestra of New York.
Otto Nicolai’s Il Templario with Juan Diego Flórez, Clémentine Margaine and Luca Salsi.
The four leading roles in La Straniera were all attractively cast by Teatro Nuovo with fresh, promising young voices that did not seem quite ready for the big time.
Can a work with indisputably great music fail to add up to a successful opera? I puzzled over that Sunday during Teatro Nuovo’s essential concert staging of Rossini’s La Gazza Ladra at SUNY Purchase.
A double-barreled “Trove Thursday” birthday salute to Renée Fleming who turns 60 today.
Washington Concert Opera on the occasion of Gounod’s 200th birthday presented the American premiere of his first opera, Sapho.
Just over a month ago the great Catalan soprano Montserrat Caballé died at age 85.
Edita Gruberova essentially revived and propagated the bel canto repertoire in central Europe, specifically in the German-speaking countries.
Vincenzo Bellini’s La Straniera was presented at George Washington University’s dreary Lisner Hall on Sunday.
On her 90th birthday “Trove Thursday” presents the late great Belgian mezzo Rita Gorr parenting Régine Crespin in Massenet’s Hérodiade.
Short answer: yes. But let’s begin by dismissing the a blatant canard. One thing that the Metropolitan Opera does not need to do is to scale back the number of performances in a season.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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