Joyce Guyer’s silvery soprano, impeccable musicianship and beguiling stage presence made her an invaluable member of the Met roster in the late 1990s and early 2000s, appearing most frequently in harmony with others in such assignments as Najade in Ariadne auf Naxos, Woglinde in Wagner’s Ring Cycle and as a Parsifal Flower Maiden.
One of my most favorite pieces is Barbarina’s delightful opener to Act IV of Le nozze di Figaro, “L’ho perduta, me meschina!” from the recording conducted by Otto Klemperer.
The combination of a young opera director who is a little bonkers and a seasoned Mozart soprano (this was Lenneke Ruiten‘s 13th Mozart role on stage) resulted in one of the best performances of Nozze di Figaro I’ve ever seen.
Così is an almost post-modern opera, in that it mocks the bourgeois construction of ‘love’ as a socially-sanctioned precursor to matrimony.
There are two problems to address – problems of the sort the arts thrive on addressing.
Patrick Mack reviews yet another Puccini album from Jonas Kaufmann
Christina Colanduoni on Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Le Nozze di Figaro
The Richard Tucker Foundation Gala has always been a big annual celebration of the voice with an emphasis on big-voiced singers in big repertoire (not much Wagner usually, though…). Like so many reliable operatic institutions it has struggled for survival after the pandemic.
Judith Malafronte sits down with bass David Leigh who debuts as Rocco in Washington National Opera’s production of Fidelio next week
Eastern Long Island remains surprisingly verdant even into the early fall.
Needing a Mozart palate-cleanser after the recent misbegotten Marriage of Figaro, I went back more than two decades for a Houston Così fan Tutte featuring then-rising Americans Christine Goerke, Joyce Di Donato, Richard Croft, and Nathan Gunn as the confused lovers.
But pressing questions remains: Why? Who is this Figaro for?
Chris’s Cache wishes Gundula Janowitz a happy 87th birthday today with three early live broadcasts of a favorite soprano in works by Pergolesi, Haydn, and Schumann.
The outdoor recitals that the Metropolitan Opera presents in New York City Parks every summer are a wonderful way to showcase rising young stars and promising beginners from the Met’s Lindemann Program.
Rachel Willis-Sørensen might be the greatest American soprano right now who doesn’t sing much in America.
The new Opera News section of OPERA magazine already seems to be getting smaller, but the March issue features a long interview with Carol Vaness about Donna Anna.
In any case, we probably got as good a Tannhäuser cast as could be assembled these days.
On February 10 of this year was the 100th anniversary of the birth of the great Italian basso Cesare Siepi. I found that this milestone was scarcely noted in the opera press.
I love it, truly, just not that much.
For anyone who thought that Downton Abbey, with its plot lines divided between the gentry and their faithful (or not-so) servants was somehow unique, that particular tale, and lo its many variations, has been told in one form or another since Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais put quill to paper in 1778 with La Folle Journée, ou Le Mariage de Figaro.
I have a horrible confession. I’ve always judged the quality of an opera largely on the number of dead characters at the finale.
All things were, indeed, made new again, when Boston’s venerable Handel & Haydn Society brought Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro to the stage, their first time doing so in its entirety, as their 2,576th concert on Thursday.
After putting a hiatus on their awards in 2020 and 2021 (for reasons that are all too well-known to all of us), the Richard Tucker Foundation Gala returned on Sunday evening November 13 honoring soprano Angel Blue the 2022 Award winner.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
×
Sign up for Parterre’s free newsletter.
Exclusive opera reviews, commentary, and top reads
delivered to your email weekly…ish.