Syllabus
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10:30am-12:00pm
via Zoom until further notice |
May 4 The Ring at the Met: The First Century From Nordica and De Reszke to Flagstad and Melchior to Nilsson and...already it’shard to find the second name there, but several golden-agers await rediscovery.
May 11 The Ring at the Met: 1986-2009 For nearly a quarter century, what locals now call “the old production” defined the Ring and represented the house at its best. It played for 170 individual nights. I was there
for 96 of them.
May 18 James Levine and the problems of artistic power Musical New York is still processing its family trauma, and there is a lot to talk about here (including some information not yet in the public record).
May 25 The Great Chaliapin He established Russian opera in the West, earned at the prima donna level, broke all
the rules and made the new ones, and for over four decades sang as beautifully as any bass ever has.
June 1 The Angels' Victory Three generations of audiences fell in love with Victoria de los Ángeles. She didn’t
have an easy life or even an easy voice, but every time she started to sing it was a win for beauty over all the world’s ills.
June 15 Wagner's Ear All his life he was a voracious reader of literature and music alike, and thanks to his
many essays and his wife’s diaries, we know what he read, heard, and thought. Even more important: we can hear what he did with what he heard.
June 22 The Road to Reopening An update on the progress back to life for the performing arts, and on the startlingly changed world in which we are about to emerge.
June 29 The Immortal Barber Near the end of Verdi’s life, a prominent critic crowned Falstaff as the pinnacle of
comic opera. Not so, said the octogenarian composer: for “abundance of true musical ideas, comic verve and truth of declamation,” the most beautiful opera buffa in existence was still The Barber of Seville.
May 11 The Ring at the Met: 1986-2009 For nearly a quarter century, what locals now call “the old production” defined the Ring and represented the house at its best. It played for 170 individual nights. I was there
for 96 of them.
May 18 James Levine and the problems of artistic power Musical New York is still processing its family trauma, and there is a lot to talk about here (including some information not yet in the public record).
May 25 The Great Chaliapin He established Russian opera in the West, earned at the prima donna level, broke all
the rules and made the new ones, and for over four decades sang as beautifully as any bass ever has.
June 1 The Angels' Victory Three generations of audiences fell in love with Victoria de los Ángeles. She didn’t
have an easy life or even an easy voice, but every time she started to sing it was a win for beauty over all the world’s ills.
June 15 Wagner's Ear All his life he was a voracious reader of literature and music alike, and thanks to his
many essays and his wife’s diaries, we know what he read, heard, and thought. Even more important: we can hear what he did with what he heard.
June 22 The Road to Reopening An update on the progress back to life for the performing arts, and on the startlingly changed world in which we are about to emerge.
June 29 The Immortal Barber Near the end of Verdi’s life, a prominent critic crowned Falstaff as the pinnacle of
comic opera. Not so, said the octogenarian composer: for “abundance of true musical ideas, comic verve and truth of declamation,” the most beautiful opera buffa in existence was still The Barber of Seville.