Donizetti - Anna Bolena - Callas, Simionato, Raimondi, Gavazzeni
(c) Otto's blogs All the news about classical music and opera in press and media
View ArticleAugust Opera Challenge Day Twenty: Most Powerful Aria
Tre sbirri, una carozza. I just have to hear those few words and I come over all faint. There was no question that Scarpia's Te Deum from Puccini's Tosca would be my nomination for 'Most Powerful...
View ArticleAugust Opera Challenge Day Twenty One: Most Listened To Opera
Without a doubt, my most listened to opera is Puccini's Tosca. It is one of the first operas I got to know, and has remained a strong favourite for more than twenty years. Even when I was living away...
View ArticleThe Big Bang
OMG, is it already October?? When did we get here and how? Then again I think I may know how… in… erm… 4 song recitals at Wigmore (plus one on the radio ;-) , 3 Trittico and 5 Faust at the ROH, 1...
View ArticleDECEMBER 23 Today in classical music
Boismortier1689 Birth of French composer Joseph Bodin de BOISMORTIER in Perpignan. d-Paris, 28 OCT 1755. Wikipedia Bio. 1709 Birth of Belgian composer Jean-Noel HAMAL. d-26 NOV 1778. Search Jean-Noel...
View ArticleFeb. 25 Met simulcast: Ernani
The Met brews up a production of ‘Ernani’ that’s about 97-percent caffeine free But conductor Marco Armiliato’s lackluster rendition of Verdi’s passionate score suggests he could have used a shot of...
View ArticleThe girl next door
Andrea Andermann, the producer who brought you Tosca in the Settings and at the Times of Tosca, Traviata in Paris, and Rigoletto in Mantova, is preparing for a telecast of La Cenerentola, to be...
View ArticleStairway to paradise
We approach, beloveds, as unto a shrine, for these are no ordinary performances. Nay, for most opera lovers this is the equivalent of a trip to Lourdes, Oberammergau and the Holy See in Rome with...
View ArticleCrowning glory
To imagine that I have anything new to say about Maria Callas’ 1957 performance of Anna Bolena at La Scala is sheer pomposity. Enough ink and pixels (along with some blood and tears judging by the...
View ArticleA box full of Verdi
In the league table of 2013 composer anniversary CD box sets, Wagner and Britten seem to have taken an early lead, with poor old Verdi languishing below in third. There was nothing in the coveted...
View Article‘Parsifal’ and ‘Don Carlo’ – A Celebratory Feast of Wagner and Verdi for the...
Ferruccio Furlanetto as King Philip II (Ken Howard / Met Opera) This was a momentous week for the Catholic Church. With the election of a new pope, Holy Week, Catholicism’s most solemn event, will...
View ArticleRossini: La Cenerentola - Marriner
Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868) La Cenerentola Cenerentola: Agnes Baltsa Don Ramiro: Francisco Araiza Dandini: Simone Alaimo Don Magnifico: Ruggero Raimondi Clorinda: Carol Malone Tisbe: Felicity Palmer...
View ArticleOur city´s main private opera companies announce their seasons
Before World War I Buenos Aires teemed with opera theatres: the new Colón, the Opera, the Politeama, the Coliseo... After it conditions changed, and by 1930, apart from the popular Marconi, only the...
View ArticleOf Darkness and Radiance: Tribute to Shostakovich #1
This week's undisputed star on MIMIC is the great Russian master, as we are offering his magnificent art the space it deserves on our blog on two consecutive tsunami instalments. To start with: the...
View ArticleBallet, opera and concert in a varied menu
In the final weeks of the season there are still some interesting things going on. A programme of Mauricio Wainrot choreographies by the Ballet Contemporáneo del Teatro San Martín, an independent...
View ArticleBAL´s “Anna Bolena”, a travesty of bel canto values
Gaetano Donizetti´s "Anna Bolena", composed when he was 33, was already his 32nd opera. And it became his first great success, as well as starting the trilogy of British Queens, continued with "Maria...
View ArticlePoe but honest
On this day in 1849, American author Edgar Allan Poe was found delirious in a gutter in Baltimore, Maryland under mysterious circumstances. This was the last time he was seen in public before his...
View ArticleA Bel Canto Bonanza — The Met Presents Bellini’s ‘La Sonnambula’ and ‘I...
Diana Damrau (center) and Javier Camarena (left) in La Sonnambula (Photo: Jonathan Tichler / Met Opera) Figaro Here, Figaro There, Figaro Everywhere How much has the modern operatic repertoire changed...
View ArticleBows and arias
Whenever opera-lovers are canvassed about what neglected operas they hunger to see revived, the resulting lists inevitably feature a goodly number of grand operas, those once wildly popular...
View ArticleBreaking: International opera chief is arrested
Helga Schmidt has been suspended as general director of the Palau de les Arts in Valencia, Spain, amid reports of financial irregularities. The Spanish news agency says there have been two arrests. One...
View Article