Calling from 2066, Brendan Latimer argues that the best way to save opera might be to just blow up the standard repertoire altogether.
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.
My favorite Verdi performance is the iconic 1960 RCA recording of Otello with Jon Vickers in the title role and the Rome Opera Orchestra and Chorus under the baton of the masterly Tullio Serafin.
Verdi’s Stiffelio goes Amish in Vienna, featuring a stellar Luciano Ganci in the title role.
I’ve looked to Sherrill Milnes many a time for insight and guidance whenever I’ve added a new Verdi role to my repertoire.
Christopher Corwin and Andrew Lokay provide dual perspectives on the National Symphony Orchestra‘s performances of Puccini’s triple-bill.
Michael Spyres talks to Kevin Ng about his winding path as a baritenor, which composer he wants to conquer next, and how he makes Wagner work in his voice — and in his native Ozarks.
Brendan Latimer hitches a ride with members of the “site-responsive opera” movement who are taking their shows out of the opera house — and out of the box.
Das Wunder der Heliane fuses sex with the sacred at a simmering performance at the Opéra National du Rhin.
Simon Boccanegra has never felt as foreboding or prophetic as it did at a recent performance at La Fenice.
Old pros Gregory Kunde and Pier Luigi Pizzi anchor a new staging of Stiffelio co-produced by three theaters in Emilia-Romagna.
A starry (and potentially annual) Christmas gala lights up Carnegie Hall.
A pair of Otellos – in Madrid and Parma – is a study in contrasts.
My recollections of Hurricane Katrina, which made landfall in Louisiana twenty years ago today, come with a pair of odd bookends: it starts with Verdi’s Don Carlo and ends with Puccini’s Il trittico.
Sherrill Milnes sits down with Brendan Latimer to talk about his life, career, and what he hopes to pass along to the next generation
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.
In the 1847 version of Macbeth, the forces of Teatro Nuovo lacked the thunderous punch this music can pack, but provided a pleasant ride
West Bay Opera’s Otello punches well above its weight
Chris’s Cache highlights the erstwhile Chicago Symphony Orchestra @ Carnegie series with not one but two starry operas conducted by Georg Solti: Salome with Birgit Nilsson and a performance of Moses und Aron
As this is “Donizetti Month” here on parterre box, Chris’s Cache offers the recently deceased Paul Plishka and Opera Orchestra of New York with Carol Vaness in Anna Bolena and with Mariella Devia in the rarely heard Adelia.
Patrick Mack looks back on “a great, nay, historic evening,” Renata Scotto‘s 1981 performance of Il trittico, now newly available on Met Opera on Demand.
Patrick Mack reviews yet another Puccini album from Jonas Kaufmann
Christopher Corwin reviews Pablo Larraín‘s Maria
Rigoletto is the perfect opera. The story is straightforward and powerful; none of the action occurs backstage or between scenes or twenty-seven years before curtain rise; and the ethical anvil lands not once but twice, on the title character singing, “La maledizione!” The curse!
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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