Three blocks from the opera house is a terrible time to realize there was homework.
Some thoughts about the perishability of opera productions follow.
Just discovered: a Swedish documentary about Birgit Nilsson.
Karita Mattila is a gift to this planet.
What would you do if I asked you to take a old, faded version of Puccini’s score for La Bohème and fill in the unreadable parts with a mélange of disco, kabarett, and Alban Berg?
“There it is! The Castel Sant’ Angelo!”
The San Francisco Opera is batting a thousand where young singers are concerned this season.
The legendary Italian soprano Magda Olivero has died.
Sondra Radvanovsky lent her luminous voice to Chamberfest for what was an unexpectedly unique recital.
Coming as Peter Gelb did from the music industry, opera lovers hoped that he would display a more distinctive knack for casting and an improved talent pipeline than Joe Volpe offered during the waning years of his tenure.
Please forgive the lateness of this week’s howler, which in any event is something more of a squeaker anyway.
Another treasure from Mike Richter‘s trove: the only studio recording of Dorothy Kirsten‘s celebrated Tosca.
Is there anything more essentially operatic than the suffering of women?
If Frank Castorf‘s work on Der Ring des Nibelungen at Bayreuth accomplishes nothing else, it should serve as a sort of loud disorganized reminder of the dangers of indulging in the intentional fallacy.
Anna Netrebko‘ s new CD of Verdi arias seems to be a bold, defiant, “in your face” statement about the direction she is taking with her career.
The behavioral phenomenon of limerence has been described as “an involuntary potentially inspiring state of adoration and attachment to a limerent object involving intrusive and obsessive thoughts, feelings and behaviors from euphoria to despair, contingent on perceived emotional reciprocation.”
In belated recognition of the 70th birthday of Eva Marton (she celebrated that milestone on June 18) La Cieca offers a particularly fiery performance of Tosca from Manila in 1979.
A Dutch-speaking parterrian has graciously translated the interview with Piotr Beczala that’s been causing such a foofaraw lately.
There’s something charming and almost irresistible about early Verdi opera. I always equate it to seeing a grade school test from Albert Einstein.
This new DVD
release from EMI of the Royal Opera’s latest production of Puccini’s Tosca will no doubt be snatched up by hordes of grateful fans around the globe.
You Parterrestrials know all about Santa Fe Opera’s amazing mountain setting and open-sided theater affording breathtaking sunsets, weather-related drama and–when the back stage wall is opened–starry backdrops, but it was my first visit, so indulge me a little.
Reflecting my new mantra — “and would have gone on longer, had he not died” – here is The Curate’s Egg edition of the Saturday breakdown.
The Met has finally released the contents of the James Levine 40th Anniversary box sets separately for those of us who didn’t have $500 lying around.
The Monday, 12th December, Weill Hall recital debut of Signora Chiara Taigi, a strikingly good looking Italian soprano, who had made her American operatic debut this past March, starring as Selika in the OONY production of Meyerbeer’s long-neglected L’Africaine, was something Your Own Camille had looked forward to with a high hopes and a faintly…
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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