Oberon's Grove

Teresa Zylis-Gara as Cio-Cio-San

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

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

Giovanna Casolla ~ FANCIULLA DEL WEST

Giovanna Casolla (above) sings Minnie in a 1991 performance of Puccini's LA FANCIULLA DEL WEST from La Scala. Giuseppe Giacomini is Dick Johnson and Jean-Philippe Lafont is Jack Rance. Lorin Maazel conducts.

Listen here.

TURANDOT ~ RAI Roma 1965

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

Stella & Tucker: TOSCA @ The Met

Antonietta Stella is Tosca (above) and Richard Tucker is Cavaradossi in this Saturday matinee broadcast from The Met in 1958. Leonard Warren is Scarpia, Salvatore Baccaloni is the Sacristan, and Dimitri Mitropoulos conducts.

Listen here.

CAST

Floria Tosca: Antonietta Stella; Mario Cavaradossi: Richard Tucker; Scarpia: Leonard Warren; Sacristan:  Salvatore Baccaloni; Spoletta: Paul Franke; Angelotti: Norman Scott; Sciarrone: George Cehanovsky; Shepherd: George Keith; Jailer Louis Sgarro

@ US Open Qualifiers ~ 2022

Above: China's Yue Yuan

Tuesday  August 23rd, 2022 - Every Summer, since moving to New York City in 1998, I have gone to the US Open. For several years, we bought tickets and saw favorite players like Martina Hingis, Kim Clijsters  Paradorn Schrichaphan, and Richard Gasquet; but as tickets became increasingly expensive and audiences seemed to be there more for the event than the actual game of tennis, I started going to the qualifying tournament. For a few years, this was a perfect solution for me, since most attendees were very serious about tennis; but then one summer the NY Times ran an article about this fantastic, free, all-day tennis event in Queens, and the qualifying tournament became a destination.

The qualifiers take place the week before the main tournament starts. Admission is free, and all day - and sometimes until late at night - you can move from court-to-court and see exciting newcomers as well as established players who - thru injury or just plain bad luck - have fallen down the rankings and who have come to the Tennis Center hoping to win a berth in the main draw. This year, such wonderful players as Fernando Verdasco, Gilles Simon, Andreas Seppi, and Pablo Cuevas were among those vying for a spot in the main draw line-up; unfortunately, none of them played today...they were all scheduled for Wednesday instead.

Having missed 2 years of live tennis due to COVID, I truly enjoyed being back at the Open. The first match I watched today today was between two Americans: Zachary Svajda (above) and Aleksandar Vukic. This year, there were no lines-people on the courts: Hawkeye is now in charge of determining what's in and what's out. Still, from somewhere, cries of "out!" were heard throughout the day. During the Svajda/Vukic match, the scoreboard malfunctioned; a ball-boy took a bathroom break and wasn't on court when he was needed. But the match proceeded, with the youthful Mr. Svajda cruising to an early lead. The taller and seemingly stronger Mr. Vukic pulled even at 4-all, but the cunning Mr. Svajda held fast and took the first set. Svajda pretty much dominated the second set, though Vukic had his moments.

Over on court 17, a duel between big hitters - Ernesto Escobedo and Ethan Quinn - was great fun to watch: both players were simply pounding the ball, and Escobedo produced some brilliant aces. It was Escobedo who took the first set; but Quinn, who is 18 years old, seemed to have the audience's backing, and he was relentless in the next two sets, claiming the win.

After a walkabout, I circled back to Court 17 where the long-legged Chinese beauty Yue Yuan faced America's Katie Volynets. Ms. Volynets could not seem to do anything against Yue Yuan's onslaughts in the first set, but she stepped up her game considerably in the second set, which went to a tense tie-breaker, which Yue Yuan finally won. The Chinese player's cracking serve was something to see, and she used it as a weapon in her march to victory.

Thundershowers had been predicted, but none materialized: it was a simply perfect day. Despite the usual distractions - and the fact they wouldn't take cash when I went to buy my humble lunch - I was very happy to be back at the US Open.  

Above: Go Soeda at the US Open Qualifiers in 2017

Among the lesser-known players who I came to love over the years of watching the qualifying matches, I was sad - though not surprised - to see that the Japanese player Go Soeda was not participating this year. I think I have seen Go in more matches than any other player; he has a beautiful, classic game with deep shots, perfectly placed. He won almost every match I saw him play over the years, but I don't remember him ever getting beyond the the first round of the main draw. Recently, I read that Go has become a father, and has retired from tennis. I certainly missed him at the Qualies this year.

UPDATE: How did the players I saw on Tuesday fare in the rest of the qualifying tournament? Both Zachary Svajda and Ethan Quinn lost in their second-round matches, by Yue Yuan won both her second and third round matches, and she advances to the main tournament.

Interestingly, two Chinese players - Wu Yibing and Zhang Zhizhen - prevailed in their three qualifying rounds, and they become the first Chinese men to enter the main draw at the US Open.

~ Oberon

Erda & The Wanderer

Rolf Kühne (above) is the Wanderer and Ortrun Wenkel is Erda in the opening scene of Act III of Wagner's SIEGFRIED.

Listen here.

PRINCE IGOR @ Chicago Lyric Opera ~ 1962

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

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

Sharon Sweet as Aida

Sharon Sweet (above) sings Aida, with Michael Sylvester as Radames and Juan Pons as Amonasro, in a scene from Act III of Verdi's AIDA:

AIDA - Act III scene - Sharon Sweet - Michael Sylvester - Juan Pons - Met 1997 bcast