Category Archives: Opera
Casa Verdi
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 2nd July 2024The Casa di Riposo per Musicisti (Rest Home for Musicians) in Milan is almost always referred to as the Casa Verdi after the titan of opera who built and paid for it. Verdi’s operatic career was over; he was in his eighties when he decided to build a home for retired musicians. Working closely with the architect…
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The Ride of the Valkyries
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 22nd June 2024With the possible exception of the Bridal March from Lohengrin, the music that opens Act 3 of Die Walküre – The Ride of the Valkyries – is the most familiar written by Richard Wagner. The Ride takes around eight minutes, and begins in the prelude to the third act, building up successive layers of accompaniment…
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Maria Jeritza
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 16th June 2024Maria Jeritza (1887-1982) was one of opera’s most glamorous and accomplished sopranos of the pre-World War I years extending to the early 30s. She was famous for her large and silvery spinto and her flamboyant acting which sometimes crossed the border into overacting. Born Marie Jedličková in the Moravian city of Brno, she trained at…
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Misalliance
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 4th June 2024In art, as in life things go awry. People have relationships and interactions that burn with disatisfaction and frustration. Opera depicts these calamaties with unsurprising frequency. Today’s offering is a litany of bad behavior – sometimes on the part of one half of a pair other times by both. I’ll start with opera’s biggest kvetch…
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Mimì è Tanto Malata!
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 26th May 2024The title translates to “Mimì is very sick.” It’s from Act 3 of Puccini’s La Bohème. The outline of the episode is below. Mimì is dying from tuberculosis and her lover Rodolfo is too poor to help and wants her to leave him for another man who will better care for her. The scene represents…
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Madama Butterfly Partially in HD -2024
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 11th May 2024No composer ever wrote a better opera than Puccini’s sad tale of love and abuse set in early 20th century Japan. The late Anthony Minghella’s production has been regularly staged at the Met since it opened the season in 2006. I was at that first performance and liked its colorful and spare staging except for…
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Asmik Grigorian
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 1st May 2024Asmik Grigorian is a Lithuanian soprano (b 1981) who just made her Met debut in the title role of Madama Butterfly. She will repeat the role in the final telecast of this year’s Met in HD series on Saturday, May 11. Over the last decade, she has appeared in an astounding variety of roles at…
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Gunshots
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 26th April 2024Guns and show business are found together almost as frequently as politicians and TV cameras. Opera is no exception Below are eight operas, well the last one is a trespasser, in which guns are part of the action. In some they are pivotal. My only requirement for inclusion in this article is that gunshots must…
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La Rondine in HD – 2024
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 20th April 2024Today’s HD telecast of Puccini’s afternoon off – La Rondine – was a repeat of the production of 2009 but with a different cast. The composer’s attempt to write an Italian opera vaguely in the style of a Viennese operetta contains a lot of beautiful music in the service of a work that’s not close…
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Aprile Millo
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 15th April 2024Aprille Millo (b 1958) is an American soprano who became famous in her twenties. She appeared 161 times at the Met between 1984 and 2007. She was at her vocal peak between 1986 and 1996. Thereafter her appearances at the Met decreased until until she stopped singing with the company before she was 50. She…
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