Category Archives: Opera
Giuseppe Giacomini
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 6th November 2024Giuseppe Giacomini (1940-2021) was one of the greatest tenors active during the last 30 years of the 20th century. Despite the excellence of his singing, he never achieved the widespread fame accorded his exact contemporaries – Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo. Nevertheless, his career was quite successful; he appeared at all the major opera houses,…
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Finale 42 – Tosca
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 30th October 2024Puccini’s Tosca has been an audience favorite since its premiere in 1900. It has everything one could ask for in an opera: beautiful and dramatically apt music, a gripping story that wastes not a line or note, and one of opera’s most spectacular endings. Tosca, an operatic diva, jumps from the parapet of the Castel…
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John Charles Thomas
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 12th October 2024America had a profusion of baritones in the 20th century. One of the most prominent then is much less so today. He’s the subject of this article. John Charles Thomas (1891-1960) was born in Meyersdale, PA. He was interested in singing from an early age. From 1910 to 1912 he studied voice at Baltimore’s Peabody…
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Insieme – Opera Duets
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 19th September 2024Jonas Kaufmann and Ludovic Tézier recorded nine tenor-baritone duets, released on a Sony Classics disc in June 2022. Insieme translates from Italian as together. The two singers are friends who have often performed together hence the title. The master of the tenor-baritone duet was Verdi. Accordingly, seven of the selections are by him. The CD starts with the…
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Ah, La Paterna Mano
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 17th September 2024Verdi’s Macbeth was his 10th opera. It was his favorite of these 10 and the first of his three operas based on Shakespeare’s plays. It is clearly the masterpiece of his pre-Rigoletto works. The tenor role of Macduff is a minor part; he has little to do except sing the great aria that is the…
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Elektra – Streamed by The Dallas Opera
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 4th September 2024The Dallas Opera is currently streaming a performance of Richard Strauss’s one-act opera Elektra from its last February run. The telecast will be available until the end of October. The full cast and video are below. This opera is the composer’s deepest dive into modernism. It is commonly asserted that he backed off from the edge of…
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Puccini’s Edgar – Not Even a Cigarillo
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 22nd August 2024Puccini’s second opera Edgar (accent on the second syllable) was first performed at La Scala in 1889. It was adapted from a verse play by Alfred de Musset. Set in 14th century Flanders it describes the contrast between the saintly and virginal Fidelia and the wildly sensual Tigrana. Not surprisingly Tigrana lights the passion fires…
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Giulietta Simionato
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 17th August 2024Giulietta Simionato (1910-2010) was one of the greatest singers of the middle of the last century. Born in Forlì, Romagna, she studied in Rovigo, and then in Padua. Though she made her stage debut in 1927 while still a teenager she gradually progressed up the ladder of Italian theaters until she made it to the…
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Le Villi – The Emergence of a Genius
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 10th August 2024Puccini’s first work for the stage was Le Villi (best translated as The Fairies). It is based on the same story as Adam’s ballet Giselle. Puccini’s opera, with dancing, takes little more than an hour. It is a slender work with only three characters – Gulielmo the head forester, Anna his daughter, and Roberto her…
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John McCormack
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 11th July 2024John McCormack (1885-1945) was an Irish tenor active from about 1909 to the early 1940s. Born to Scottish parents who had emigrated to Ireland, his interest in singing began as a child. In 1903, he won the coveted gold medal of the Dublin Feis Ceoil. A friend of James Joyce, who was two years older than…
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