Month: June 2009

Last week (May 27), “without further a-don’t,” as she adorably puts it, Madame Vera Galupe-Borszkh, the world’s reigning traumatic soprano
— lately, she says, more of a soprano “spento” — bade a
last, lingering, loving farewell to her adoring public in a sold-out concert at
the Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theater on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

The Collegiate Chorale (ably supported by the orchestra of the New York City
Opera under George Manahan) chose Gluck’s Alceste, last heard in
New York at the City Opera in 1982, for its annual spring concert opera —
an excellent choice for a chorus eager to show its stuff.

Robert Carsen’s production of Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is not new, as the La Scala playbill suggests.

La Cenerentola runs third in popularity among Rossini’s comic
operas — the Met didn’t get around to it at all until the present
staging was created for Cecilia Bartoli.

Very little is known about Giovanni Battista Draghi (or Drago, according to certain sources), known as Pergolesi.

To the sorrow of all lovers of baroque opera, J.S. Bach never composed for
the stage.

When Matthias Goerne was six, he heard Winterreise and was captivated.

Although there was considerable theatrical imagination on display, redemption was in critically short supply in Peter Konwitschny’s production of The Flying Dutchman at Munich’s estimable Bavarian State Opera.

“Life is too important to be taken seriously” goes the motto. That could describe this cheerful production, just the right good humored tonic for these difficult times.

Sir Harrison Birtwistle’s early opera, Punch and Judy, premiered at Aldeburgh in 1968. Benjamin Britten reportedly walked out. Now Birtwistle is himself the pre-eminent British composer, whose work has long since become part of the Aldeburgh tradition. This year’s Festival opened with two Birtwistle premieres, The Corridor and Semper Dowland, simper dolens.