Category Archives: Puccini
Met's La Rondine Marred by Technical Glitch
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 10th January 2009La Rondine (broadcast today in HD) has been absent from the Met for more than 70 years. The house brought it back solely as a vehicle for Angela Gheorghiu and her spouse Roberto Alagna. Why the Met let’s anything by Puccini languish while it finds the resources for Satyagraha or Dr Atomic can only be…
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Turandot Without the T
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 22nd December 2008Today’s Puccini’s 150th birthday. To commemorate the occasion NPR’s Performance Today had an interview with noted Puccini expert Fred Plotkin. During its course Plotkin followed the now conventional practice of pronouncing Puccini’s last opera with its final t articulated. While this practice is pretty small beans in the course of human events it’s pedantic and…
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Thoughts On The Puccini Sesquicentennial
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 20th December 2008Much of the July 2008 issue of Opera News is devoted to Giacomo Puccini who was born in 1858. Anybody who loves the composer’s operas, which is anyone who has ever heard them and who is not a terminal snob, will enjoy reading the articles analyzing various components of Puccini’s amazing ability with melody and…
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Manon Lescaut in HD – Feb 16, 2008
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 16th February 2008I imagine that the Met’s almost 30 year old production of Puccini’s Manon Lescaut was brought back as a vehicle for one of the company’s star sopranos, Karita Mattila. If so it was a mistake. Prior to this run the Finnish singer had only performed one Puccini role at the Met – Musetta in six…
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