Fernando Corena, born on Dec. 22, 1916, had a long-standing association with the Metropolitan Opera. In fact, he sang over 700 times with the company between 1954 and 1978. His first ever performance with the company was as Leporello in “Don Giovanni,” that debut coming on Feb. 6, 1954. On Dec. 30, 1978, he finished off his Met career in {…}
Polish baritone Mariusz Kwiecien has delivered some of the finest performances of the past decade, cementing himself as one of the greatest singing actors of his generation. Born on Nov. 4, the baritone has explored a wide-range of repertoire, always showcasing nuance in both his singing and his acting. He started his career back in native Poland before becoming a {…}
It’s Halloween! Which means that most people are taking the opportunity to disguise themselves as someone else, live out a temporary existence as a character that they either dreamed of being or enjoy playing. Opera is full of this kind of interplay, with characters disguising themselves or putting on literal costumes to get their way. One thing we often learn {…}
What is the greatest opera of all time? Everyone has his or her own opinions but a recent poll of 172 of the world’s greatest singers has yielded a consensus – Mozart’s “Le Nozze di Figaro.” The poll included such stars as tenor/baritone Plácido Domingo, sopranos Kiri Te Kanawa and Renée Fleming and bass-baritone Bryn Terfel, among others, and was {…}
Regina Resnik is often cited as one of the great American mezzos of the 20th century. Born on August 30, she managed an international career that spanned a whopping five decades and became a house favorite with such companies as La Scala, the Paris Opera, the Royal Opera, the Vienna State Opera, and of course, the Metropolitan Opera, where she {…}
Sharon Sweet and Krassimira Stoyanova. Two sopranos born on August 16 with rather different careers. The former was a well-known American dramatic soprano who took on a wide range of Italian and German repertoire, most prominently singing operas by Wagner and Verdi. The latter, a Bulgarian with a far lighter voice, has slowly dug into that very same dramatic repertoire, {…}
In just a few weeks the Festival d’Opéra de Québec kicks off its summer festival with some unique offerings. It all gets started on July 24, 2017, with an opening night concert which will star a number of opera singers including sopranos Lyne Fortin and Magali Simard-Galdès, mezzo-soprano Julie Boulianne, tenors Antoine Bélanger, Antonio Figueroa and Éric Thériault, and baritones {…}
Medici.TV is ready to give opera fans a healthy offering of their preferred art form this summer. The streaming service, which lists performances for free replays for the first 90 days after a live broadcast will showcase major opera performances from some of the biggest venues this summer. It all kicks off Thursday, July 6, 2017, with a showing of {…}
The love for opera is healthy and growing in San Francisco. The San Francisco Opera announced that its Opera in the Ballpark, a free live simulcast from the stage of the War Memorial Opera House on June 30, 2017, to the 103-foot wide scoreboard at the home of the San Francisco Giants, was a rocking success as over 23,000 people {…}
The flamboyant new production of Mozart’s “Don Giovanni,” a drama giocoso in two acts, was the brilliant ending of the 2016/2017 season of the Opéra de Lausanne. This was a remarkable event for the town, located in the French-speaking part of Switzerland on the picturesque shore of Lake Léman also known as Lake Geneva. Despite being one of the world’s {…}
Happy Father’s Day! Fathers are those we turn to in moments of need, who set great examples by which we can live by and, the best, seek out ways to enrich our lives every day. Opera has quite the list of famous fathers, and unlike the mothers, who are often portrayed negatively, fathers come in all shapes and sizes. So {…}
