The Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions were one of the last events I attended in person in 2020. Now, one year on, the competition has returned, this time in an online format, and this time with an entirely new name: The Metropolitan Opera Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition, after the event’s new sponsors.
Ombra Compagna, out today on Pentatone, spotlights Lisette Oropesa in 10 of Mozart’s most challenging concert arias accompanied by Il Pomo d’Oro conducted by Antonello Manacorda.
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.
Trove Thursday begins February with two striking versions of Rossini’s Tancredi.
Robert Wilson is many things: a visionary (certainly); an iconoclast, artist, director, and designer of sets, lighting, costumes, movement (and furniture). Yet his work is never boring (well, at least not intentionally).
Over the past week New York City was blessed by two appealing 17th century presentations: John Blow’s Venus and Adonis from Opera Lafayette and La Storia di Orfeo courtesy of the Boston Early Music Festival.
In recent weeks local and visiting groups performed refreshing rarities by Zelenka, Domenico Scarlatti and Telemann so engagingly that one didn’t miss the old standbys at all.
Starring Jamie Barton, Orfeo ed Euridice returns to the Met next month for the first time in more than a decade so “Trove Thursday” offers two complete live versions of Gluck’s masterwork.
The sexiest moment on Broadway this season features a 73-year-old man and a single button.
Washington Concert Opera on the occasion of Gounod’s 200th birthday presented the American premiere of his first opera, Sapho.
While one sympathized with Matthew Aucoin’s urge to add his voice to the Orpheus canon it was difficult to figure out how his work complemented Gluck’s.
Neumeier adapted the story close to home, making Orpheus a choreographer and his wife a star ballerina.
While Farinelli and the King isn’t the only Broadway play to have explored castration (Sweet Bird of Youth, anyone?) it’s likely the first to concern a legendary 18th century opera star.
In the same season that Manhattan School of Music revived The Gypsy Baron, Riverside Theater around the corner is the site of Amore Opera’s “Season of Gypsy Operas.”
Massenet’s La Navarraise in a live performance featuring Rita Gorr as Anita and George Shirley as Araquil.
A simply gorgeous performance of Gluck’s Orphée et Euridice starring Juan Diego Flórez.
This Sunday marks the 10th anniversary of the death of Lorraine Hunt Lieberson from breast cancer.
What is an Orphic moment? A song so sweet that even Hades must release the dead back to the living?
On her 90th birthday “Trove Thursday” presents the late great Belgian mezzo Rita Gorr parenting Régine Crespin in Massenet’s Hérodiade.
“CanCon”, or Canadian Content, is always a concern in Canadian cultural discourse.
Press quotes on the back of this new release from EMI of Georges Bizet’s masterpiece promise ”a stylish and cliché-free Carmen” and on most fronts I think it’s a fair assessment.
After 23 years, the Queen of Carthage has finally made it to Manhattan.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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