April is the cruelest month, the song tells us—but this year, it was a week later. Ghenady Meirson, Philadelphia’s master of Russian Opera and coach extraordinaire, died on May 8.
Opera is back, baby, and it’s good to be home!
Franco Corelli was born on April 8, 1921 in Ancona and Trove Thursday celebrates the matinee-idol tenor’s centenary with a pair of his rare non-Met US appearances; seducing Marie Collier in La Fanciulla del West and vacillating between Ilva Ligabue and Grace Bumbry in Il Trovatore.
Born on this day 99 years ago, actress and singer Doris Day.
The Met recently submitted another eye-roll inducing entry for the Woke Olympics with their Women’s History Month slate.
Kennedy Center could not have predicted just how aptly Saturday evening’s rescheduled recital of 2020 Marian Anderson Award winner, baritone Will Liverman, would respond to the moment.
On this day in 1968 the Metropolitan Opera presented Tosca, the first new production of this work since 1917.
While the Met reruns over-familiar HDs, Trove Thursday offers a Puccini rarity: Edgar, the composer’s second opera, starring Latonia Moore and Marcello Giordani.
Nathan Hull was an operatic Quixote who did not go it alone, but inspired bands of optimists, giving proper employment to the many worthy New Yorkers mad enough to study voice and pleasure rare elsewhere to those of us thrilled to take it in.
Trove Thursday presents Alzira—derided by some as Verdi’s worst opera—in a 1968 Carnegie Hall concert with Gianfranco Cecchele, Louis Quilico (star of last night’s Met Rigoletto stream) and Elinor Ross, who died in March at age 93.
Sonya Yoncheva’s first-ever Princess Romazov was one of this summer’s casualties but Trove Thursday steps up with a rare 1960 in-house pirate of Giordano’s Fedora starring Renata Tebaldi, Giuseppe di Stefano and Tito Gobbi along with a pair of Tebaldi-di Stefano Puccini highlights from the early 1950s.
Such a sleek, polished finish is a testament to the incredible resources and experience at the Met’s disposal – to coordinate this livestream across two different continents so seamlessly and with such flair is very impressive indeed.
Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint George is frequently referred to as “le Mozart noir.” While surely intended as a favorable comparison to Mozart, the sobriquet is diminishing, implying that Bologne’s music was somehow derivative of Mozart’s.
Trove Thursday completes its Prévost–trifecta with Puccini’s Manon Lescaut starring Sondra Radvanovsky and (pre-Met) Aleksandrs Antonenko conducted by Riccardo Chailly plus an added Radvanovsky-Puccini bonus: Suor Angelica.
Somewhere in all of this, I decided it was time to try Callas.
With most of us dug in for the duration, there’s no better time to tuck into a CD box set of neglected treasures. Not that I needed an excuse, mind you.
As long as women have been preyed upon, Don Giovanni has been relevant.
Opera for families may not generally be my thing, but I loved feeling like I was a tiny part of shaping a new opera.
Ultimately, the unrelenting grimness of the subject matter allied to the sameness of the vocal writing made for a wearying evening.
Although the gold glitter cannons detonated at the end of the act were an ostentatious reminder that this was a celebration of the new year, it seemed that the only words on anyone’s lips as the audience filed out of the theater were “Viva Netrebko!”
The San Francisco Opera, perhaps incidentally, continued their exploration of operas based on literary works by mounting the revival of Giacomo Puccini’s first success, Manon Lescaut.
Sunday’s Richard Tucker Gala at Carnegie Hall was unusually satisfying despite a less than usually superstarry line-up.
On this day in 1958 the Metropolitan Opera opened its season with Tosca, featuring Renata Tebaldi, Mario del Monaco and George London.
My first-ever Met Sunday opera brought the welcome return of Gluck’s sublime Orfeo ed Euridice in an enchanting afternoon that combined elegant conducting, joyous dancing and Jamie Barton’s extraordinary hero.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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