Category Archives: Puccini
Turandot in HD 2019
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 12th October 2019The Met seems to have only a couple of dozen operas in its standard repertory, so when it not staging something that will likely never return (eg, Philip Glass’ Akhnaten) it must repeat itself. Such repetition is especially noticeable on its HD telecasts. Today Franco Zeffirelli’s literal recreation of ancient Peking was the first of…
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La Fanciulla Del West in HD 2018 – Great
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 28th October 2018Wagner ‘s goal was to write opera that consisted of endless melody. I don’t think he reached that goal, but Puccini did in La Fanciulla Del West. Saturday’s performance, the last of seven of this season’s run at the Met, was a spectacular success. Puccini’s luminous score received a dazzling reading by the Met’s orchestra,…
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In Questa Reggia
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 8th October 2018I recently posted an article about Puccini’s final opera, Turandot, that had nothing to say about its title character. The work achieved the renown it currently enjoys (#17 on operabase’s list of most frequently performed operas) largely due to the work of Birgit Nilsson. Before Nilsson first performed the role at the Met in 1961…
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Finale 19 – Turandot Act 1
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 30th September 2018Italian opera as is currently practiced began with Rossini and ended with Puccini. All the Italian operas in the standard repertory were written between 1813 and 1924 – a little more than a century, a blink in the history of art. The last of these operas is Turandot. A magnificent achievement left incomplete at Puccini’s…
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La Bohème Returns in HD Redux Again Back By Popular Demand Anon
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 24th February 2018Puccini’s La Bohème was performed by the Met today for the 465,196,276,982,653rd time in a performance telecast to beyond the Andromeda galaxy. The opera is so popular that even where I live, at the end of the line, it’s been done multiple times. A cursory search of the internet shows that the work has been…
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Finale 17 – Semiramide Act 1
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 20th February 2018Last night was the first performance of the Met’s revival of Rossini’s final italian opera, Semiramide. I’ll have more to say about this opera and its current Met run after the telecast on March 10. The colossal finale of its first act is one of the glories of Italian opera. Here is this finale from…
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Tosca in HD 2018
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 27th January 2018Tosca has given the Met a lot of trouble recently, or perhaps it’s the other way around. First, this new staging replaced Luc Bondy’s 2009 production which lasted for only 59 performances. Everybody seemed to hate it. I thought, by the standards of today’s stagings of the standard repertory, that it was pretty tame. But…
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La Bohème – Lubbock Symphony Orchestra
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 6th May 2017The following link will take to photos of the dress rehearsal of the LSO’s performance of La Bohème – La Bohème Pictures. The cast is below. The next link is to a PowerPoint presentation I gave before each performance. In order to hear the musical illustrations you will need the complete folder that has the…
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La Bohème Program Notes
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 22nd April 2017The Lubbock Symphony Orchestra will present two concert performances of Puccini’s opera on May 5-6. The program notes I’ve written for the occasion are below. Puccini’s La Bohème is one of the very few operas that have transcended its genre. Virtually everyone loves it, even those who are indifferent to opera. First performed in 1896…
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Vittoria Tenors Identified
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 18th April 2017On January 2 of this year I posted 22 examples of 22 different tenors singing Vittoria! Vitoria!! from the second act of Tosca. Their identities are below. Giuseppe Di Stefano Jonas Kaufmann Franco Corelli Luciano Pavarotti Amadeo Zambon Mario Del Monaco Beniamino Gigli Jussi Björling Renato Cioni Jose Carreras Placido Domingo Giacomo Aragall Giorgio Lamberti…
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