Advanced search
- TITLES
- NAMES
- COLLABORATIONS
Search filters
Enter full date
to
or just enter yyyy, or yyyy-mm below
to
to
to
Exclude
Only includes titles with the selected topics
to
In minutes
to
1-30 of 30
- La Traviata stands or falls on its lead singers and in Norah Amsellem and Rolando Villazon this 2005 Salzburg Festival performance has a pair whose electric interactions and brilliant singing are irresistible. If Amsellem can't quite provide the vocal bloom of the great Violettas of the past, hers is a lovely voice used with intelligence and dramatic intensity and she has the coloratura chops to deliver her Act I showpieces with flair. Villazon's tenor has ping on top, terrific color, and an impressive range of rubato, dynamic shadings, and interesting phrasing that makes Alfredo's music sound newly minted. The Germont is Thomas Hampson, no Verdi baritone but an astute singer and actor. Chorus and smaller roles are fine, the orchestra first-rate. Carlo Rizzi has odd notions about the music (usually too fast, sometimes way too slow) but this Traviata triumphs despite his conducting.
- This Bohème was the talk of the 2012 Salzburg Festival, the first production of Puccini's timeless masterpiece ever given there, in a bold and meticulously observed contemporary staging. A top-flight cast brings a thoroughly modern perspective to the chaotic lives and tragic loves of the young Bohemians, while conductor Daniele Gatti draws out every detail of this endlessly inventive score, with luxurious playing from the Wiener Philharmoniker. "Ms. Netrebko's Mimì emerged as thoroughly genuine and gorgeously sung. Mr. Beczala's Rodolfo was a perfect match" (The New York Times).
- The Moorish general Othello is manipulated into thinking that his new wife Desdemona has been carrying on an affair with his lieutenant Michael Cassio when in reality it is all part of the scheme of a bitter ensign named Iago.
- The opera takes place in a operetta-like milieu in Vienna in the 1860s. Protagonists are an impoverished noble family and their daughters of marriageable age, Arabella and Zdenka, as well as the rich Slavic nobles Mandryka and the young officer Matteo. After all sorts of amorous entanglements the drama comes to a happy end.
- A selfish hero regrets his apathetic rejection of a young woman's love and his careless incitement of a fatal duel with his best friend.
- Mozart's classic opera about Prince Tamino and Papageno's quest and trials, staged by Otto Schenck for the 1964 Salzburg Festival and filmed live.
- Elektra wants vengeance for her murdered father, Agamemnon.
- A year has passed since the young Emperor went hunting with his falcon and captured the Peri, who was in the form of a gazelle, and married her. She is still all light, neither human nor a spirit, and if after three more days she casts no shadow, she must return to Keikobad and the Emperor will turn to stone. Since she cannot bear children unless she can find a human shadow, she asks the strange Nurse for help. The Nurse, who controls weird magics, brings her to the discontented household of Barak, a dyer, and his Wife. The Nurse attempts to purchase the Wife's shadow by promising her riches, an idyllic life, and a young lover. The Wife resists three times, and the Baraks are cast into an underground vault. The characters wander through eerily exotic settings while they recover their consciences, and all ends happily.