Opera Baltimore concludes its season with a piercing semi-staged production of Pelléas et Mélisande.
Confused dramaturgy dampens an otherwise sparkling night of singing in Opera Baltimore’s Lucrezia Borgia.
For Niel Rishoi, a new CD of Bellini, Donizetti, and Verdi by Eleonora Burrato for Pentatone can’t help but invite unflattering comparisons
John Yohalem wraps up Donizetti Month at parterre box with a look back at nearly six decades of Donizetti operagoing.
Who knew that rehearing a performance you believed had become nothing more than a cherished memory would have such healing properties during a time of bereavement?
A live opening night broadcast from Rome.
John Yohalem reports from the New York Dramatic Voices performance of Act III of Die Walküre
Given the keen interest in recent posts of Met pirates of Montserrat Caballé in Verdi, Chris’s Cache concludes its trio with the Spanish soprano’s Met Violetta, along with additional Met in-house recordings of Virginia Zeani, Pilar Lorengar, Jeanette Pilou, and Joan Sutherland as Verdi’s doomed courtesan.
The wicked poisoner showed herself in fine form, full of purple passion and lusty music-making that would gladden the heart of any bel canto enthusiast or opera lover in general.
Beverly Sills and Renée Fleming perform 30 years apart the same work with the same orchestra in the same venue!
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.
Trove Thursday begins February with two striking versions of Rossini’s Tancredi.
Nathan Hull was an operatic Quixote who did not go it alone, but inspired bands of optimists, giving proper employment to the many worthy New Yorkers mad enough to study voice and pleasure rare elsewhere to those of us thrilled to take it in.
Trove Thursday uncovered two broadcasts of Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia that share a fascinating nexus: in each an enduring superstar tenor—José Carreras/Alfredo Kraus—is poisoned by a soon-to-vanish rising-star soprano—Vasso Papantoniou/Margarita Castro-Alberty.
Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Die Tote Stadt in a 1967 Vienna broadcast appropriately featuring three American stars: John Alexander, Marilyn Zschau, and George London.
A double-barreled “Trove Thursday” birthday salute to Renée Fleming who turns 60 today.
Just over a month ago the great Catalan soprano Montserrat Caballé died at age 85.
Next, I asked Marko Mimica which basses he prefers to listen to on recordings.
In Bellini’s opera Norma, the “padre” role of Oroveso, it may be safely said, is “undistinguished”—dull and conventional. The bass entrusted with the role usually will engender two reactions: more frequently than not, “Cut this boring music,” and rather more rarely: “What a pity Oroveso doesn’t have more music.”
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.
“Trove Thursday” offers Gemma di Vergy with the lovely, largely now forgotten Adriana Maliponte in the title role.
A week from Saturday Will Crutchfield’s “Bel Canto at Caramoor” ends a 20-year run with Il Pirata.
Now we find Mariella Devia, a diva held in near mythic regard due to her vocal longevity, with competing videos of two of her performances that were released, literally, on the same day.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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