Oberon's Glade

Category: Opera

  • Opera’s Greatest Love Duet

    Nuit d'ivresse

    Béatrice Uria-Monzon and Roberto Alagna are seen in both rehearsal and performance of “Nuit d’ivresse“, the love duet from Hector Berlioz’ LES TROYENS from a concert given at Marseille in 2013. Lawrence Foster conducts.

    Watch and listen here.

  • Second Twilight

    Nilsson brunnhilde

    Above: Birgit Nilsson as Brunnhilde

    On December 14th, 1963, I heard Wagner’s GOTTERDAMMERUNG (Twilight of the Gods) for the second time. I had been an ardent opera fan for almost 5 years, but delving into the Wagner repertoire was still somewhat daunting. I had first heard GOTTERDAMMERUNG 1962, finding parts of it thrilling and other sections less so. The 1963 broadcast felt more accessible musically, and details of the plot seemed clearer to me.

    I recently discovered that the 1963 GOTTERDAMMERUNG broadcast has been posted on YouTube. Listen here.

    Brünnhilde: Birgit Nilsson; Siegfried: Hans Hopf; Hagen: Ernst Wiemann; Alberich: Gerhard Pechner; Gunther: Norman Mittlemann; Gutrune: Mary Curtis-Verna; Waltraute: Mignon Dunn; Woglinde: Mary Ellen Pracht; Wellgunde: Rosalind Elias; Flossilde: Gladys Kriese; First Norn: Lili Chookasian; Second Norn: Mignon Dunn; Third Norn: Mary Curtis-Verna; Conductor: Joseph Rosenstock

    Actually seeing a RING opera was still i my future, but once I had attended the matinee of Karajan’s magnificent RHEINGOLD in 1969 (part of an unforgettable weekend), the Cycle became an obsession for me. Echoing Wotan: “Den Ring muss ich haben!”

  • William Desbiens

    Desbiens

    Ever on the lookout for new voices, I very much like this rendering of Pierrot’s Tanzlied from Korngold’s DIE TOTE STADT sung by Canadian baritone William Desbiens, with Julia Lynch at the piano.

    Watch and listen here.

  • Teresa Zylis-Gara as Cio-Cio-San

    Z-g butterfly

    The great Polish soprano Teresa Zylis-Gara sings the title-role in Puccini’s MADAMA BUTTERFLY from a 1976 Met broadcast. John Alexander, Nedda Casei, and Theodor Uppman have the other leading roles, and Richard Woitach conducts.

    Listen here.

  • Fauré ~ REQUIEM – Festival de Saint Denis 2010

    Snapshot faure

    Above: soloists David Bizic and Karina Gauvin, and conductor Laurence Equilbey

    A performance of Gabriel Fauré’s REQUIEM from the Festival de Saint Denis, 2010.

    Watch and listen here.

    Karina Gauvin, soprano
    David Bizic, baritone

    Ensemble Orchestral de Paris
    Choeur Accentus

    Laurence Equilbey, conductor

  • Fauré ~ REQUIEM – Festival de Saint Denis 2010

    Snapshot faure

    Above: soloists David Bizic and Karina Gauvin, and conductor Laurence Equilbey

    A performance of Gabriel Fauré’s REQUIEM from the Festival de Saint Denis, 2010.

    Watch and listen here.

    Karina Gauvin, soprano
    David Bizic, baritone

    Ensemble Orchestral de Paris
    Choeur Accentus

    Laurence Equilbey, conductor

  • TURANDOT ~ RAI Roma 1965

    Mcknight

    Above: soprano Anne McKnight, aka Anna de Cavalieri

    A very interesting audio-only performance of TURANDOT from a 1965 RAI broadcast has turned up on YouTube. Listen here.

    Anna de Cavalieri was the Italian stage-name of the American soprano Anne McKnight. Read about her here. Giuseppe Valdegno was Toscanini’s Amonasro, Iago, and Falstaff. I wrote briefly about Lydia Marimpietri here.

    CAST

    Turandot – Anna Di Cavalieri; Calaf – Gianfranco Cecchele; Liù – Lydia Marimpietrl; Ping – Giuseppe Valdengo; Pang – Mario Carlin; Pong – Tommaso Frascati; Timur – Elio Castellano; Emperor Altoum – Mario Binci; Mandarin – Giandomenico Alunno

    Conductor: Ferruccio Scaglia

  • PRINCE IGOR @ Chicago Lyric Opera ~ 1962

    Danon

    Oskar Danon (above) conducts a 1962 performance of Borodin’s PRINCE IGOR from Chicago Lyric Opera, with a very interesting cast:

    Yaroslavna – Consuelo Rubio
    Konchakovna – Carol Smith
    Polovtsian Girl – Jeanne Diamond
    Nurse – Prudencija Bickus
    Vladimir – David Poleri
    Eroshka – Mariano Caruso
    Ovlur – Rudolf Knoll
    Prince Igor – Igor Gorin
    Prince Galitsky – Boris Christoff
    Skula – Renato Cesari
    Khan Konchak – Boris Christoff

    Listen here.

  • Callas @ Dallas/1957

    Snapshot

    In 1957, Maria Callas sang a concert with the Dallas Symphony under the baton of Nicola Rescigno. Someone snuck a tape recorder into one of the rehearsals for this concert, and the resulting “Callas/Rehearsal in Dallas 1957” made the rounds of reel-to-reel tape-traders back in the 1960s.

    David Abramowitz, my very first opera-friend, gave me a copy of the rehearsal tape and I enjoyed it, despite being somewhat frustrated with the stops-and-starts as Callas and Rescigno worked out the interpretive details. I was especially impressed by the different takes on passages from the entrance scena – sometimes referred to as the Letter Scene – of Lady Macbeth from Verdi’s MACBETH.

    It occurred to me to patch these phrases together and create a complete run-thru of the recitative and aria. Years later, when I was getting rid of my reel-to-reel collection, it was one of the few things I saved. The voice of Maestro Rescigno can sometimes be heard, and there’s some static at first, and a bit of tape drag. But once she’s into the aria proper, it gets better.

    Maria Callas – MACBETH aria – rehearsal composite – Dallas 1957

  • Rysanek’s 25th Anniversary @ The Met

    Leonie

    So many wonderful things have popped up on YouTube during the pandemic. An audio-only recording of the Leonie Rysanek 25th Anniversary Gala at the Metropolitan Opera House in 1984 provides a document of a truly exciting performance…which I attended. 

    Listen here.

    Before the performance began, I heard people seated near us asking: “Do you think she will scream?” The general consensus was that, being a concert performance, she would refrain from including her trademark screams as both Kundry and Sieglinde.

    She screamed.