Christopher Corwin speaks to rising bass-baritone Le Bu about his journey from Yancheng, China to the Met (with a stop in Wichita) and what important roles await him.
Anna Pirozzi makes a welcome return to the Metropolitan Opera, but Turandot remains as thorny as ever.
Verdi’s Stiffelio goes Amish in Vienna, featuring a stellar Luciano Ganci in the title role.
I feel that the best years of Maria Callas’s vocalità, when we hear such a unique freedom and generosity in her singing, were captured in her early recordings.
Parterre Box highlights a busy few months of Verdi performances for Marina Rebeka and Ludovic Tézier with an exciting sample of their debuts in Nabucco.
There was that Tristan.
It’s Norma, darling. We know.
Larry Wolff continues his musings on Verdi’s varied career, this time over Giovanna d’Arco at the Teatro Regio in Parma
Lincoln Center is in full diva mode. Or at least that is what it seemed as I passed the line of posters outside Alice Tully Hall for the forthcoming Maria Callas biopic.
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.
It would be enough to compare his official studio recording of this work with the recent performances in Turin to confirm that today Riccardo Muti is no longer totally ‘Mutian’
How appropriate that the Met should present this supposedly “Jewish” opera after many in the audience had just spent twelve days immersed in the genuine article over the High Holy Days.
On this day in 1984, the Metropolitan Opera presented a new production of Zandonai’s Francesca da Rimini.
On this day in 1974 Verdi’s I Vespri Siciliani had its Metropolitan Opera stage premiere.
On Thursday June 30th, San Francisco Opera closed their summer season with a one-night-only special concert celebrating Eun Sun Kim’s first season as the Caroline H. Hume Music Director, in an aptly named concert “Eun Sun Kim Conducts Verdi.”
The Met’s recent Ariadne auf Naxos and Elektra combo left me wanting more and more Richard Strauss, so Trove Thursday offers a complete Capriccio with Jonas Kaufmann (his one-and-only Flamand) and Christopher Maltman vying for Soile Isokoski.
Lyric Opera of Chicago scored a smashing success on Sunday with its “Verdi Voices” concert, featuring soprano Tamara Wilson, tenor Russell Thomas, and Lyric Music Director Enrique Mazzola conducting Members of the Lyric Opera Orchestra in what might be termed a program of Verdi’s Greatest Hits.
As one can see from the chronology published earlier this year, the American Opera Society, in addition to reviving a number of now familiar operas, introduced many singers who became important local figures; however, there were shooting-star exceptions like today’s Trove Thursday offering of d’Albert’s Tiefland featuring Angeles Gulin and Ion Buzea.
From an exposure standpoint, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was the best thing to happen to opera since Beverly Sills.
Concerts at Wolf Trap, mixed bags in more ways than one, provided fleeting glimpses of the old normal as moments of frisson mingled with more familiar monotony.
Pauline Tinsley, who died May 11, made few commercial recordings; Trove Thursday offers the thrilling English soprano in excerpts over nearly two decades from nine works ranging from Handel to Richard Strauss.
Trove Thursday celebrates Christa Ludwig with live excerpts from 1955 through 1982.
The American Opera Society introduced many important singers to New York City audiences, but few were as controversial as the Greek soprano Elena Souliotis; Trove Thursday offers her local debut (at age 23) in Anna Bolena with Marilyn Horne, Janet Baker, Plácido Domingo and Carlo Cava.
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.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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