#verdi

[operaqueen]

Maria Callas, as Lady Macbeth. La Scala, 1952.

[infinitelytheheartexpands]

BASEBALL RIGOLETTO?

alright, so:

the year is 2020. because the year is 2020, opera companies are being forced to cancel or drastically rework their season. and because it is the year 2020 in america, and the american government is absolutely not being helpful, pretty much every american opera company has to cancel their entire season.

tulsa opera sees this and says “there has to be another way”.

they decide to stage an opera in a (minor league) baseball stadium. people can be socially distanced onstage, audience members can be socially distanced, we can get away with a reduced orchestration, win-win.

they decide that because they are doing an opera in a baseball stadium, they might as well give an opera a baseball-centered concept.

they decide to do verdi’s rigoletto, one of the most popular operas of all time and also one where they can cast several oklahoma opera people (most notably famous soprano sarah coburn as gilda).

rigoletto is the team mascot. the duke is a cocky (in all senses of the word) star pitcher. sparafucile is an umpire from oklahoma city (one of the reasons the sparaficule/rigoletto duet is hysterically funny is because the subtitles kept it TOTALLY STRAIGHT until they got to the line about sparafucile being a foreigner, when they translated it as sparafucile saying he is from oklahoma city) who inexplicably carries a dagger with him at all times and likes to murder people.

it is a mess. it is camp. it is ingenious given the circumstances. it is glorious. and i happen to have a) a single degree of separation from the production (i was in a production of la bohème with the singer who played ceprano) and b) a link!

[derring-do]

Opera Streams: Early-Mid March 2026

1st: [Previously postponed, not 100% confirmed but on the website] Verdi's Luisa Miller from Wiener Staatsoper. Featuring Nadine Sierra, Freddie De Tommaso, and Roberto Tagliavini. Free! Canceled alas

4th: Bizet's Carmen from Malmö Opera. Featuring Claudio Ribas, Matthew White, and Luthando Qave. Rental.

5th: Verdi's Nabucco from Wiener Staatsoper. Featuring Anna Netrebko, Amartuvshin Enkhbat, and Ivan Magrì. Free (with registration)! The live stream has been canceled and instead the 2021 production with Domingo and Pirozzi will be repeated.

6th: Dusapin's Antigone from the Paris Philharmonie. Featuring Christel Loetzsch, Anna Prohaska,and Tómas Tómasson. Free!

7th: Nicole Car Masterclass from Opera for Peace. Free!

8th: Ponchielli's La Gioconda from Gran Teatre del Liceu. Featuring Saioa Hernández, Michael Fabiano, John Relyea, and Violeta Urmana. Rental or season subscription.

8th: The Victoria de los Ángeles Centennial Gala from Gran Teatre del Liceu. Featuring a group of sopranos and mezzos, including Joyce DiDonato, Louise Alder, Marina Viotti, and Juliana Grigoryan, singing de los Ángeles's favorite arias and lieder. Free!

12th: Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito from Wiener Staatsoper. Featuring Emily D'Angelo, Hanna-Elisabeth Müller, and Katleho Mokhoabane. Free (with registration)!

[Technically, Midsummer at Teatro Real could show up during these two weeks but I guarantee it won't. Look for it in the next post - it's got a great cast]

Archive notes: Stage+ adds the 2022 Met Lucia di Lammermoor with Nadine Sierra on the 7th. Ooppera Baletti Finland recently added their 2021 La Traviata. Readers may also be interested in a concert-documentary from Bruno de Sá on the 8th.

[vera-dauriac]

Attention: Operablr!!!

The Met's listeners' choice opera has been announced. Look at the absolute fucking gem we will be getting.

I've heard this before, and yes, it's as good as you think it will be.

[one-time-i-dreamt]

David Tennant is an opera singer, and is portraying Iago in Verdi’s Otello.

[brambledeggss]

We cut right from Sophie crying to this and it caught me so off guard.

[detroitlib]

Portrait of soprano Ellabelle Davis costumed for the role of Aida. Printed on front: "Ellabelle Davis, soprano. National Concert and Artists Corporation, 711 Fifth Avenue, New York 22, N.Y." Typed on back: "Aida in the news. When soprano, Ellabelle Davis, appears in concert at the [blank] in [blank] on [blank], music lovers of this city will hear an artist who wrote musical history not long ago by becoming the first American Negro ever to have been starred by a major opera company of the world. Miss Davis is shown here costumed for the role of Aida, which she sang with the Opera Nacional in Mexico City, supported by a cast of stars from La Scala, Milan, and New York's Metropolitan, which has traditionally closed its doors to colored singers. Photo: Alfred Valente."

E. Azalia Hackley Collection of African Americans in the Performing Arts, Detroit Public Library

[katerinaaqu]

Hear me out; Both Achilles and Neoptolemus are "Dies Irae". The thing is

Achilles is the Mozart one

Neoptolemus is the Verdi one