Mission statement Mission statement

Can it be nearly a quarter-century ago that an Italian mezzo-soprano in her early twenties recorded her first recital?

Pout and about Pout and about

I could feel my face (to say nothing of my spirits) sink as I opened an envelope from La Cieca containing a new Decca CD to review.

Anna, in her own words

I was on the bus to Nürnberg today on the way to do Wagner tourism and hear Herr Sacro Fuoco tomorrow, and on the way I translated the juicy bits of the full print edition Anna Netrebko article… I was going to post it as a comment but it turns out I thought a lot…

Mind over Mater

It’s Holy Week (as I write) and I just received this new CD from our Doyenne. Good timing. For the concert stage (and the opera house), I think of Pergolesi as essentially a one-hit wonder (each). I won’t pretend to know his opera buffa, La Serva Padrona, let alone hide the fact that I drove right…

One sigh fits all

I used to think that recital albums, greatest hits albums, and concert albums were just products of a singer’s vanity—or conductor—and that they terribly lacked imagination or preparation or dramatic heft. “Greatest Hits” albums frequently suffer from this affliction, as it is, more often than not, just a mish-mash of what this soprano or that…