C-major has made available the first DVD/Blu-ray of Franco Faccio’s Amleto.
In Andrea Chenier an unexpected Canadian star-tenor relishes beheading alongside a far less well-known Italian diva: Jon Vickers and Ilva Ligabue.
I was extraordinarily happy Monday evening to encounter Angel Blue and Russell Thomas as Mimi and Rodolfo.
“It’s not easy being green”: especially if you’re the two greatest Italian opera composers.
The tendency to rank—to create subjective lists of best or greatest, or to organize things in ascending or descending order—is a human compulsion.
Bellini’s Norma Monday evening didn’t at all improve on the production it was replacing.
I first went bonkers for Bellini’s masterpiece during the previous century when the Met remounted it for Joan Sutherland.
Endlessly extricating her from existing contracts then negotiating new ones must make being Sonya Yoncheva’s manager the hardest job in the music business.
The debate over live transmissions of opera to cinemas in HD isn’t going to go away.
A live Un Ballo in Maschera featuring Jon Vickers, Amy Shuard, Lucia Popp, Shirley Verrett and Peter Glossop.
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.
LoftOpera’s Saturday night performance of Rossini’s Otello successfully appealed to the essential kinetic energy of the operatic art form.
Let’s call this meeting to order. My name is Patrick and I’m a boxset-aholic.
Leonie Rysanek, would have turned 90 today.
The 2016 Richard Tucker Award recipient is Tamara Wilson.
Jonny spielt auf, the second opera by 26-year-old composer Ernest K?enek, was such a huge success after its 1927 Leipzig premiere that in the following season it was performed 491 times in Germany alone.
The characters get right down to work immediately with their foul deeds.
Just 85 years ago, four of Italy’s greatest opera stars gathered at Teatro all Scala for an historic event: the first-ever recording of Arrigo Boito’s sole complete opera, Mefistofele.
Falstaff, Verdi’s totally unexpected, final, great comedic roar.
Shirley Verrett remains one of my all-time favorite artists, and I am pleased to introduce her to my Mixcloud site in one of her parade roles: the femme fatale in Saint-Saëns’ Samson et Dalila.
It’s time to add more legends to my Mixcloud site: Mario Del Monaco, Raina Kabaivanska, and Tito Gobbi star in this 1962 performance of Otello from Covent Garden led by Georg Solti.
“Has anyone ever seen a truly great production of this opera?”
“Trove Thursday” presents Sena Jurinac‘s radiant portrayal of Janacek’s Jenufa opposite the implacable Kostelnicka of Martha Mödl.
The grand illusion is that we know it all. From four hundred years of opera, we’ve distilled the worthy survivors.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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