Living at the Opera

1967 was a very good year for Renata Scotto both in the quality of her singing and in her approach to opera as drama. The soprano had three standout performances that year. The May 18th Lucia di Lammermoor in Naples noted on this site. She sang a vocally impressive Gilda in Rigoletto on August 11th [...]

Here is another Renata Scotto Lucia which has come available, and it is one of her best. This performance is one of three which the soprano sang in May 1967, at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples. Again it is the cast and the conductor that make this outing memorable. Along with Riccardo Muti, Gianandrea [...]

This delightful performance on CD of Rossini’s Cenerentola was recorded live on 13 November 2004 at the ROSSINI IN WILDBAD festival. The cast gathered for this production exhibits the highest singing standards possible among today’s Rossini revivals. Joyce Di Donato’s Cenerentola is the total package. She not only sings in an effortless way, but her [...]

“Miss Scotto lives her roles and the standing ovation she received was her just due.” So said Max de Schauensee, Bulletin Music Critic Emeritus about Renata Scotto’s Bolena on December 16, 1975, at the Philadelphia Academy of Music. Scotto sang only five performances of the opera, three in Dallas with mezzo-soprano Tatiana Troyanos as Giovanna [...]

Rossini Opera Festival 2006 One of the most rewarding experiences in the opera world is to attend an opera where the high expectations for a great performance and the actual event join in making the entire event an evening to remember. Such was the case on August 17th, 2006, when the Rossini Opera Festival presented [...]

The 70s saw a renewed interest in Verdi’s Vespri, but it’s this May, 1978, live performance from the Maggio Musicale in Florence which satisfies our emotional cravings for another of the composer’s musical feasts. And conductor Riccardo Muti makes sure we get a complete meal. Starting with a commanding and intense reading of the overture [...]

GREAT RECORDINGS OF THE CENTURY: Giuseppe VERDI (1813-1901) La Traviata Opera in three acts (1853) Libretto by Francesco Maria Piave after ‘La Dame aux amelias’ by Alexandre Dumas fils Violetta Valery – Renata Scotto (soprano) Flora Bervoix – Sarah Walker (mezzo) Anina – Cynthia Buchan (soprano) Alfredo Germont – Alfredo Kraus (tenor) Giorgio Germont – [...]

Now that the Rossini revival has passed the quarter century mark, it seems fitting for the opera world to take a look at performances before the advent of critical perusal of Rossini’s operas. One such look leads us to his Mosè recorded for RAI in Rome on June 27th, 1956. This is the Italian version [...]

Gioachino ROSSINI (1792-1868) Mose in Egitto – azione tragico-sacra in three acts (1819 version) Mose – Lorenzo Regazzo (bass) Elcia – Akie Amou (soprano) Faraone – Wojtek Gierlach (bass) Osiride – Filippo Adami (tenor) Amaltea – Rossella Bevacqua (soprano) Aronne – Giorgio Trucco (tenor) Amenofi Karen Bandelow (mezzo-soprano) Mambre – Giuseppe Fedeli (tenor) Württemberg Philharmonic [...]

There are two live recordings of the opera with Renata Scotto, one from Palermo in 1968 and the other, much preferred here, from Venice in 1970. One finds Scotto on firmer vocal ground in the latter hitting most of the High Cs and Ds head on that are scattered throughout the score. This vocal security [...]