Fifty some years ago I stumbled on to John Barbirolli‘s recording of matchless Elgar & V-Williams music for strings and discovered my go-to conductor for life.
Grand Tier Grab Bag hearkens back to the days when Sondra Radvanovsky — who is singing no Verdi at all next season — seemed like the Verdi soprano of reference.
Following the announcement that she’ll make her Met debut next season, Grand Tier Grab Bag brings Italian soprano Erika Grimaldi to your attention with a duet from Manon Lescaut.
Diana Soviero chats with Roger Pines about six decades of performing, four decades of teaching, and how she’s handing the tradition off to the next generation.
Franz Welser-Möst leads a rigorous, if emotionally staid, performance of Verdi‘s Requiem at Carnegie Hall.
A starry (and potentially annual) Christmas gala lights up Carnegie Hall.
Jonas Kaufmann has a new lieder album called Doppelgänger, but the contents of the album vary depending on how you purchase it.
Mexican soprano Gilda Cruz-Romo died on 28 June at the age of 85 and Chris’s Cache remembers her with live recordings of a frequent role and a rather rare one: a last-minute Met Tosca plus perhaps her only stab at the Cherubini Medea.
Ahead of her return to the Met, soprano Corinne Winters chats with Kevin Ng about her repertoire, overcoming biases about her voice type, and how she plans to play “energetic, young women” as long as she can.
Patrick Mack reviews yet another Puccini album from Jonas Kaufmann
Washington Concert Opera returned on November 24th for its first show of the 2024-2025 season with a production of Puccini’s Manon Lescaut, another (relative) rarity from the composer following last year’s season-closing presentation of La rondine.
Patrick Mack on the iconic Ethan Mordden‘s career and his first book on opera in 30 years – and it appears that time has mostly stopped in the Mordden manse.
Overall, this was a superb achievement and a thrilling season opener for the San Francisco Opera.
Quite simply, the singers are not around today who are steeped in the tradition of verismo, or for that matter the later part of the 19th century.
Doing my research for these “thoughts” ahead of a starry revival in London that opened yesterday, I came across the following review for the Opening Night of the 1962-63 Season.
After a century of searching, the world has perhaps finally found a definitive Magda in ethereal soprano Ailyn Pérez.
In an ingenious stroke of double casting, the Met’s new Forza del destino brings back the Marquis of Calatrava—father of the heroine Leonora, unintentionally killed in the opening scene by a bullet from her lover’s pistol—as Padre Guardiano, Father Superior of the monastery that will take her under its protection as a hermit in Act 2.
This week Chris’s Cache features Maria Chiara, Elena Mauti-Nunziata, Rita Orlandi-Malaspina and Orianna Santunione in L’Amico Fritz, Mefistofele, Simon Boccanegra and La Fanciulla del West, respectively.
On this day in 1979 the Metropolitan Opera presented a new production of Verdi’s Don Carlo.
Anticipating Leontyne Price’s 96th birthday on February 10, Chris’s Cache presents the American diva in an epic collection of live performances.
On this day in 1978 the Metropolitan Opera presented a new production of Massenet’s Thaïs.
In the last weeks of January, as the Metropolitan Opera season wound to a close (prior to the winter hiatus) two striking sopranos were thrust into the limelight.
Teresa Zylis-Gara died in late August at 91 and Trove Thursday offers the Polish soprano in a wide-ranging collection of live material showcasing her great versatility.
Franco Corelli was born on April 8, 1921 in Ancona and Trove Thursday celebrates the matinee-idol tenor’s centenary with a pair of his rare non-Met US appearances; seducing Marie Collier in La Fanciulla del West and vacillating between Ilva Ligabue and Grace Bumbry in Il Trovatore.
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.