As soon as James Clutton, the new Opera Holland Park director, stepped on stage to welcome the audience, we all knew that we were not at the typical English summer opera festival.
If you have not been following the exploits of Teatro Grattacielo during lockdown, it’s not because they haven’t been exploitatory all over the place.
Just over a month ago the great Catalan soprano Montserrat Caballé died at age 85.
At Palermo’s Teatro Massimo, Zerline, the heroine of Auber’s once beloved Fra Diavolo , undresses down to frilly French skivvies.
This year’s treat was Vittorio Gnecchi’s Cassandra, completed around 1905
Geraldine Farrar has gone and the Gerry-flappers are disconsolate.
The key to enjoying Bellini’s I Capuleti e Montechi is to do a hard factory reset and reformat your brain to forget all other works based on Romeo and Juliet.
Teatro Grattacielo is New York’s homegrown organization to rescue Verismo operas from oblivion, one per annum, allowing for the occasional double bill.
There has never been a successful vampire musical—so they say. But that’s just not true.
A funny thing happened to me yesterday. I was desperate to go to Aprile Millo’s long awaited recital but it simply wasn’t in the budget. La Cieca sent a posting mentioning she would give her extra ticket to the first one who e-mails her. I sent it, I got it, and the rest is history…
The headlined phrase is a neologism (La Cieca should know, because she just made it up) and therefore will require a bit of explanation. Bear with your doyenne, cher public, because there’s eventually going to be a CD review in here somewhere. So. Many, many years ago, ere the earth was young and all that,…
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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