The Broad Stage presented Joseph Calleja in their Celebrity Opera Series May 10 with a concert called A Tribute to Mario Lanza.
W.C. Fields used to have a funny trope about in show business you should never work with children or animals. To that list should perhaps be added the soprano Anna Netrebko.
Only the grand forces of Lyric Opera could bring such power and life to this production of My Fair Lady.
Verdi’s ninth opera, Attila, offers all the noisy music from Nabucco without a “Va pensiero” to cherish.
Blood-and-guts singing is the reason to see Nabucco at the Metropolitan Opera this season.
Anita Cerquetti had one of the most remarkable, most brief careers in opera in the past century.
“Take a good deal of trouble with it, because it is a fine subject, delicate and full of pathos.”
The UK’s first-ever production of Poliuto, now available from Opus Arte on DVD, set the lions of Rome among the lambs of Glyndebourne.
How Verdi’s opera might address this particular nightmare was unclear.
By the time Roberto Devereux saw its premiere at Napoli’s Teatro San Carlo on 29 October, 1837, Gaetano Donizetti had lost, in an 18-month time frame, both his parents, two still-born children, and his beloved wife Virginia.
I grew up with the Anna Moffo recording of Luisa Miller, so it was fortuitous that the Met gave the premiere of a new production in 1968, around the time RCA released the album.
Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson’s 1949 musicalization of Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country has found a tentative home on the opera stage.
When Maestro Carlo Rizzi lifted his baton and began leading the Lyric Opera Orchestra in a stirring, detailed account of the overture to Nabucco, the electrified audience knew we were in for an exciting evening of music making.
Those who enjoyed (at least aurally) the Met’s recent La Donna del Lago may be craving more of the master from Pesaro, so 2015’s final “Trove Thursday” presents Torvaldo e Dorliska.
Between them, Maria Guleghina, Marcello Giordani, James Morris and John Del Carlo have nearly 150 combined years of service on stage.
Lisette Oropesa sang “The Lost One”—the meaning of “traviata.”
“With radiant looks, we shall depart this world,” sing Konstanze and Belmonte near the end of Mozart’s exotic yet charming opera Singspiel Die Entführung aus dem Serail.
It was a night a-tingle with excitement at the Metropolitan Opera House.
Whenever I encounter Eric Owens, he’s plotting to conquer the universe.
The big news from Bel Canto at Caramoor’s presentation of Les Vêpres Siciliennes last Saturday is far from unexpected.
Name a Verdi opera, based on a play by Voltaire, described in the immortal words of the composer as “Questo e proprio brutto.”
All of the operas of Giuseppe Verdi contain music that is worth hearing and can be rewarding in good performances.
Verdi’s first operatic masterpiece is well served by this DVD
of a performance from the Teatro Regio di Parma.
In spite of sounding like an indelicate football injury, I Lombardi alla prima crociata was only Giuseppe Verdi’s fourth opera.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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