Lost in space
It’s rare to encounter a video of an opera that has zero redeeming qualities, but I think I might have found it: the latest Arena di Verona La Traviata.
La traviata
334 pieces since 2005 — in 1 role, at 10 companies, most often at Metropolitan Opera.
334
pieces
1
role
10
companies
22
years
Company Arena di Verona
Company Dell' Arte Opera Ensemble
Bridging the gap
On Saturday night, dell’ arte Opera Ensemble presented a lean performance of La Traviata.
Company English National Opera
The kink’s English
A new production of La traviata by Daniel Kramer, the current artistic director of ENO, brings fresh ideas to the classic drama.
Company Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour
Fairy-lit
It was dear Oscar Wilde, wasn’t it, who devised that early mot du jour “Good writers borrow; great writers steal”…
Company La Monnaie
The naked and the dead
The controversial production of La traviata from La Monnaie directed by Andrea Breth is now available for viewing online.
Company Metropolitan Opera
Cavalcade of stars
Back-to-back casts in the Metropolitan Opera’s revivals of Madama Butterfly and La traviata offer ample opportunity for soprano-gazing.
Thoughts on La Gioconda: Milanov
It’s time to discuss Zinka Milanov.
A step backwards into conventionality
On this day in 1981 the Metropolitan Opera telecast its new and unremarkable production of La traviata.
Touched by a fallen Angel
Angel Blue‘s refulgent, lush soprano blooms as Violetta’s vocal lines broaden and soar.
Sexy package
On this day in 2006 tenor Jonas Kaufmann made his Metropolitan Opera debut as Alfredo.
Rebranding the Met
A quick survey of the Met website shows wide swaths of available seats for the upcoming performances of La traviata and L’elisir d’amore. Only new works like The Hours and Fire Shut Up in My Bones have been achieving sold-out houses.
Quicksilver princess
Trove Thursday remembers Edita Gruberová with live recordings of two of the three operas I heard her perform at the Met: a 1985 Munich La Traviata with Neil Shicoff and Wolfgang Brendel conducted by Carlos Kleiber and an I Puritani from Vienna 1994 featuring two other artists who recently left us too soon: Marcello Giordani and Dmitri Hvorostovsky.
Truth or dare
On the 21st of this month Romanian soprano Virginia Zeani will celebrate her 95th birthday and Trove Thursday salutes her versatility with two markedly different 20th century works: Menotti’s The Consul and Mascagni’s Il Piccolo Marat, one of many collaborations with her husband Nicola Rossi-Lemeni.
“What price star system?”
On this day in 1957, Renata Tebaldi sang the title role in a new production of La traviata at the Met, directed by Tyrone Guthrie.
There arose such a clatter
With Christmas Eve 2016 falling on a Saturday, the Met offers contrasting orchestral splendors at noon and 6 p.m.
Winter afternoon’s dream
It took the better part of a decade—including two high-profile cancelations—or New York to finally hear Anna Netrebko in recital.
Red dress diaries
La Cieca has just received a complete report from her spy at today’s open dress rehearsal of La traviata at the Met.
Red shoe diary
La Cieca’s spy wriggled into last night’s Met dress rehearsal of La traviata and reports: “One has to be careful about making too many judgments or drawing too many conclusions from a rehearsal, but last night’s final dress was indeed very promising.”
Face time
As we look forward to New Year’s Eve and to the gala opening of Willy Decker’s La Traviata at the Met, it seems fitting to look back—by way of the official, live, DVD recording of the production’s sensational world premiere at the Salzburg Festival in 2005—to get some sense of what’s behind all the hype. […]
requiem and rehearsal
La Cieca’s spy reports on the Met’s pre-season:Â
Company Opera Philadelphia
Lost soul
Lisette Oropesa sang “The Lost One”—the meaning of “traviata.”
Company Royal Opera House
New faces of 2014
Once upon a time, a man and a woman met. He could sing, she could sing. They fell in love, got married, and became a power couple to rival Billary.
À l’opéra ce soir
When I was a kid growing up in Paris, there was a weekly TV broadcast of a theater play called Au Théatre Ce Soir that I loved. But that my father would rarely let me watch this show, because the plays were all were silly comedies, usually badly acted and filmed without any creativity or […]
Company Teatro la Fenice
Bottom dollar
In Robert Carsen’s 2004 production of La traviata for Teatro La Fenice, the Prelude is staged. During this haunting music, we see Violetta lounging on a huge bed while more than a dozen men pay her for her services with wads of oversized dollar bills. By the time Act One begins, the bed is virtually covered […]
Company Teatro Real
The distance between us
“Dying in the third act is much more intense, as the sickness has the same symptoms as COVID-19, so suffocation, pain, agony, fever—all this must be present and real.”
I’ll take the fall
The days are getting shorter, but you can keep the prattle going this fall’s Talk of the Town! You will, you can, you must join in the discussion about: Great mezzo soprano performances (October),
Gained in translation (November), Teleport me back to… (December).
Win a Free Ticket to Opening Night at the Met!
Quinn Kelsey and Lise Davidsen star in the Met's new Macbeth. We're giving away one ticket, so screw your courage to the sticking place and enter now!
