Category Archives: Opera

Rigoletto – Cortigiani

The title role of Verdi’s Rigoletto is the greatest role ever written for a baritone. That’s saying a lot, given that the composer wrote more great parts for the baritone than any other composer of opera. Of his 26 operas, five have the baritone’s name as their title. All the rest of the composer’s operas…


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Night and Day – Mario Lanza

Night and Day Mario Lanza is the title of the latest CD release of Lanza’s singing using Digitally Extracted Stereo to enhance the original mono recordings. The technique is a revelation. Lanza’s great voice sounds like it was recorded yesterday. The two-disc set contains 49 selections ranging from opera to popular songs and a lot…


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Aida in HD – 2025

Aida returned to the Met’s stage for the 1199th time today. It was the 4th time Verdi’s masterpiece has been telecast in the company’s HD series. This appearance marked the first telecast of Michael Mayer’s new production that replaced Sonja Frisell’s extravaganza which had survived about 270 mountings at the New York opera palace and…


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Maria – Review

Maria is a film depicting the last days of soprano Maria Callas. Streaming on Netflix, the movie directed by Pablo Larraín, is a tour de force for Angelina Jolie who plays the legendary singer. A lot has been made about the accuracy of the events surrounding Callas’ death in Paris at age 53. Similarly, some…


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The Met’s New Aida – Brief Review

Last night a performance of the Met’s new production of Aida was broadcast over the company’s Sirius channel. It’s always hazardous to make judgments based on a single listen, so I’ll make a fiew tentative comments. I’ll expand these after seeing the production on January 25th as part of this year’s HD series. The vocal…


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Feodor Chaliapin

Feodor Chaliapin ( 1873-1938) was perhaps the greatest singing actor of the 20th century. His voice was on a par with Caruso’s (also born in February 1873) while his acting ability was at least equal to that of Maria Callas. He was born to a peasant family in Kazan Russia. After vocal studies with a…


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Puccini 100 Years After

Sunday was the 100th anniversary of the death of the last great master of Italian opera – Giacomo Puccini. So great is the composer’s hold on opera’s audience that of the seven most performed operas at the Met three are by Verdi, three by Puccini – the remaining one is Carmen. There is nothing I…


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Tosca in HD 2024

Puccini’s political melodrama was presented at the Met for the 1017th time. This performance was the fourth presentation of the opera on the Met’s HD series. All three leads sang their roles for the first time at the Met in this season’s run. David McVicar’s traditional staging works very well. Presenting a Puccini opera as…


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Giuseppe Giacomini

Giuseppe 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

Puccini’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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