I decided I’d take ‘never made it to the Met’ as an excuse to submit a post about why French soprano Denise Duval (1921-2015) is special to me.
Das Wunder der Heliane fuses sex with the sacred at a simmering performance at the Opéra National du Rhin.
Offenbach‘s Robinson Crusoé is salvaged from obscurity.
Hilda Harris and Catherine Malfitano in an 1981 broadcast to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Ravel‘s opera
My sole live encounter with Seiji Ozawa coincided with his final appearances at the Metropolitan Opera, where he conducted its 2008 revival of Tchaikovsky’s Pikovaya Dama.
Julia Bullock seems to fission herself multiple times over during the course of her newest, widely ranging recital program.
A double bill (with a choral intermezzo) that just finished four nights’ run at the Manhattan School of Music is a delight, musically whimsical and reminiscent, wittily and colorfully staged.
Trove Thursday offers Offenbach’s delightful La Grande-duchesse de Gérolstein featuring Jennie Tourel, Laurel Hurley and Martial Singher, led by Arnold Gamson.
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.
It’s a pity that Francis Poulenc took so long to getting around to compose his operas.
Almost exactly twenty years after her auspicious Metropolitan Opera debut as the Fiakermilli in Arabella and a year following what she has claims was her final appearance on the operatic stage, Natalie Dessay returned Sunday afternoon to Lincoln Center—to sing opera.
Kaiser Overall—the name is intended to be sung in English, though the opera is in German—is probably mad, though perhaps no madder than anyone else.
“Parade” is defined simply by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as “a pompous show.” Fitting enough, then, that the triple bill titled Parade: An Evening of French Music Theatre recorded at the Met on March 16, 2002 consists of Erik Satie’s ballet Parade, Francis Poulenc’s Les Mamelles de Tirésias, and Maurice Ravel’s L’Enfant et les Sortilèges. These…
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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