Chick Flicks Ruled the Box Office This Past Weekend

"Bridesmaids over performs with US$24.6M on Opening Weekend.....The Metropolitan Opera’s The Met: Live in HD continued to thrive, with Saturday’s broadcast of Wagner’s Die Walküre grossing $2.3 million from 850 screens in the US." [Source]

(Metropolitan Opera photo of Die Walküre by Ken Howard)

Fashion Designers Sketch Opera Costumes for Charity

Christian Siriano - Turandot

"Miuccia Prada for Atilla. Thierry Mugler for Lady Gaga. Rodarte for Black Swan. It seems that high-end fashion designers are expanding far beyond their runways these days. So it was only befitting when the 6th Annual Divas Shop for Opera event, a charity designated to benefit the design of New York City Opera costumes, asked various designers to create sketches inspired by their favorite operas. Narciso Rodriguez, Peter Som and Carolina Herrera were among those who created one-of-a-kind drawings that will be auctioned off at the event." [Source]

View seven more designs after the jump. Learn more about the benefit for New York City Opera by clicking here.

Fleming, Hampson and Thielemann in Berlin Pay-Per-View

Visit the Berlin Philharmonic digital concert hall to purchase excerpts from the all-Strauss concert with Renée Fleming and Thomas Hampson under conductor Christian Thielemann at http://www.digitalconcerthall.com/en/concert/1641. Full program is after the jump.

Appreciation Day for Romanian Soprano Cellia Costea

The Connection Between Cio-Cio San and Ann Curry

"Born in Guam, her Navy father met her Japanese mother during the U.S. occupation of Japan. Their story mirrors Puccini's opera Madame Butterfly with one big exception: Unlike the Navy cad in the opera, Curry's father returned to Japan two years later to marry his Japanese bride. She grew up in Ashland and later became the first female reporter for KTVL in Medford. From 1980-84, during the time that Mount St. Helens blew up and the Rajneeshies arrived in Oregon, she worked at KGW in Portland. Then she headed to Los Angeles -- but she still has a sister in Lake Oswego and a stepmother in Grants Pass. (Her parents are both deceased.) Curry and her husband, software executive Brian Ross, met at the University of Oregon and have a daughter, McKenzie, 18, and a son, William Walker Curry Ross (Billy), 16." [Source]

Happy Birthday: Patrice Munsel

Patrice Munsel was born on May 14, 1925, in Spokane, Washington. Munsel studied in New York, and was coached by Giacomo Spadoni. She first sang at the Metropolitan at age 17, in March 1943. She made her official Metropolitan debut on December 4, 1943 at the age of 18, singing Philine in Mignon. Perhaps best known for the role of Adele in Die Fledermaus, she performed 225 times at the Metropolitan. Sir Rudolf Bing called her a "superb soubrette", and implied that she was the world's best. Her opera roles included Rosina in The Barber of Seville, and Despina in Cosi fan Tutte. In 1952 Munsel married Robert C. Schuler, an advertising and public-relations executive, producer and writer. The two were married for fifty-five years and had four children together: Heidi, Rhett, Scott and Nicole. Their marriage ended upon Schuler's death in 2007. Schuler notably

conceived and produced the ABC-TV primetime variety series The Patrice Munsel Show, which of course starred his wife. The program was broadcast on ABC from 1956-1957. He also wrote a 2005 memoir of his life with his wife entitled, The Diva & I. Munsel appeared on many other TV shows during her career, including appearing in the role of Marietta (Countess d'Altena) in the January 15, 1955 live telecast of the operetta Naughty Marietta. She also portrayed the title role in the 1953 film Melba which chronicled the life of the great opera singer, Dame Nellie Melba. Miss Munsel made frequent television appearances on the Bell Telephone Hour. She was nicknamed "Princess Pat." In 1958 she ended her career as an opera singer, and began to perform in musical comedies. [Source]

"One Night of Love"

"Il dolce suono mi colpi di sua voce" Lucia di Lammermoor

"With a Song in My Heart"

"Je suis Titania" Mignon

"All the Things That You Are"

"Vogliatemi bene" Madama Butterfly (w/Richard Tucker)

"Italian Street Song" Naughty Marietta

EMI Records Rossini's "Guillaume Tell" Under Pappano

Video introduction by the Maestro after the jump.

Is Natalie Dessay Working for the Santa Fe Tourism Board?

Mecca Has Arrived For Tin-Can Era Recording Junkies

"The Library of Congress has unveiled a new website, the National Jukebox, with materials currently controlled by Sony Music. Users can stream — for free — some 10,000 sides. All the pre-1925 records from what was once the Victor Talking Machine Company have been made available, though who knows how many have disappeared in the years since...The Jukebox offers quite a variety of sonic bites, from classical to jazz, novelty acts to presidential speeches. There are more than 1300 recordings of operatic repertoire, more than 1200 classical sides and 32 recordings of yodeling. In that mix are some very tasty treats. And for the diehard opera buffs, there's the completely digitized "Victrola Book of Opera" from 1919, which includes synopses of over a hundred operas and discographies of those works presented as excerpts."

Travel back to a century ago and listen to a treasure trove of recordings: http://www.loc.gov/jukebox/

Louise Homer - "Stride la vampa" 1909


Johanna Gadski - "Ritorna vincitor" 1908


Edith Helena - "Tacea la notte" (in English) 1911


Lucy Isabelle Marsh - "O patria mia" 1913


Frieda Hempel "Ernani, involami" 1915


M.A. Michailova "Caro nome" 1905



Josephina Huguet "Una voce poco fa" 1906

Daniela Köhler Sings Strauss and Wagner

Kate Royal is Pregnant and Cancels Glyndebourne 2011

Norman Lebrecht announces that soprano Kate Royal, who just made her Metropolitan Opera debut in Orfeo ed Euridice, is pregnant and has cancelled her engagement at the Glyndebourne Festival this summer. Miah Persson will be replacing her as the Governess in Britten's Turn of the Screw. Ms. Royal's husband, Julian Ovenden, is currently preparing Maury Yeston's Death Takes a Holiday which begins previews at the Roundabout Theatre in New York on June 10. The couple has one son, Johnnie Beau, that was born in October 2009. [Source, Source]

Watch a video of Julian Ovenden performing Sondheim after the jump!

French Opera Singer Jane Rhodes Passes Away at Age 82

"Il va venir" La Juive (Halévy)

Jane Rhodes was born March 13, 1929, in Paris, France. After studying at the Conservatory of Music, she sang in the chorus of the Théâtre du Châtelet in 1953. She made her operatic debut singing the role of Marguerite in La Damnation de Faust by Berlioz at the Grand Tehatre de Nancy. In addition to taking on the repertoire of Puccini's Tosca and Massenet's Werther, she also sang many new works that were adapted from books including Le Fou (Marcel Landowski) in 1956, followed by Le Chevalier de neige (Georges Delerue with a libretto by Boris Vian) in 1957. That same year she sang the role of Renata in the first recording of Prokofiev's The Fiery Angel under the direction of Charles Bruck with the Orchestra of the Paris

"De tous côtés j'aperçois dans
la plaine" Le Roi d'Ys (Lalo)

Opera. The recording was in French and went on to win two Grands Prix du Disque awards. In 1958, she joined the Réunion des Théâtres Lyriques Nationaux and debuted at the Palais Garnier in La Damnation de Faust and Salomé of Richard Strauss at the Palais Garnier and sang Tosca at the l'Opéra-Comique. This led her to be engaged for a gala performance, chaired by Général Charles de Gaulle, at the Palais Garnier in a 1959 Raymond Rouleau production of Bizet's Carmen under a 20-year old conductor named Roberto Benzi who would later become her husband. This role would become synonymous with the singer throughout her career. She quickly became internationally known and was engaged to sing at the Metropolitan Opera in Carmen (1960) & Strauss's Salome (1962), as well as the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence in Monteverdi's L'Incoronazione di Poppea (1961).

"L'amour est un oiseau rebelle"
Carmen (Bizet)

She was an acting student of Pierre Renoir and went on to make several opera films. The first was in 1961 when conductor Georges Dervaux performed La Damnation de Faust. When CBS made the 1962 movie, The Drama of Carmen, Rhodes was chosen to sing the title role under the direction of Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic, that won the Grand Prix Mondial de la Télévision Award. She also played the role of La Sangria in director Serge Friedman's film Un mari, c'est un mari in 1976 which was filmed in France. After her performances of Carmen at the MET, she toured the Paris production in 11 performances in Japan (Tokyo and Osaka) in 1961. During an evening performance in 1968, she sang La Voix humaine of Francis Poulenc and L'Heure espagnole of Maurice Ravel at the l'Opéra-Comique. Rhodes had a fondness for operetta and on the 150th birthday

"Dis-moi, Vénus" La Belle Hélène
(Offenbach)

celebration of Jacques Offenbach in 1969 she sang La Périchole at the Théâtre de Paris with conductor Jean-Claude Casadesus. She went on to perform many of the composer's works throughout the 1970s, including La Belle Hélène, La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein and La Vie Parisienne, many of which were recorded for EMI with conductor Michel Plasson and singers like Régine Crespin, Mady Mesplé and Alain Vanzo. During the end of that decade she began to focus on the song repertoire of Duparc, Debussy, Fauré, Brahms and Mahler, with collaborator Christian Ivaldi. Because of her great beauty, she earned the nickname "Bardot of the Opera." With a career that lasted over 40 years, the singer had a voice range that span from powerful dramatic soprano to higher mezzo-soprano. Often describe as having a voice of burnished bronze, she was able to sing a vast repertoire including Le Roi d'Ys (Lalo), La Vérité de Jeanne (André Jolivet), Aida (Verdi), Hippolyte et Aricie (Rameau), Le Serment (Tansman), Don Carlos (Verdi), Pique Dame (Tchaikovsky) and La Mort à Bâle (Conrad Beck). After retiring from opera in 1980, she spent the next 10 years giving concerts

and recital. When she stopped performing, she remained passionate about devoting herself to the teaching of her art to future generations. She was decorated with the "Chevalier de l'Ordre National du Mérite" and "Commandeur des Arts et Lettres." After being hospitalized for two weeks, the singer died at the American Hospital in Neuilly-sur-Seine from neurological disorders on May 7, 2011. She was 82.
[Source, Source, Source, Source, Source, Source]

A complete discography of Jane Rhodes is after the jump.

MET Sirius XM Radio Tonight: "Ariadne auf Naxos"

Listen to the Metropolitan Opera perform Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos live tonight at 8:00 PM EST on Sirius XM radio. Intermission guests: James Levine.

Patricia Racette Excels in Title Role of Iphigénie For WNO

Racette in Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride at Washington National Opera (Photo: Scott Suchman)

"Without any daringly ornamented arias or anything extraneous that might divert attention from the story's dramatic continuity, a Gluck opera will succeed only with talented singing actors and compelling direction. There are almost none of the tried-and-true operatic clichés to fall back on, not even a romantic intrigue: the central relationship here is of brother and sister, who do not even recognize one another until the end. In the title role, soprano Patricia Racette was riveting, the searing strength of her voice underscoring the still intensity of her stage presence. This was certainly what one expected of Racette, after such satisfying turns here as Jenůfa in 2007 and Ellen Orford in 2009, but her bold and electrifying performance far exceeded my hopes. After some tentative notes at the top of her range in the first hour or so, Racette hit her stride, singing with lyrical abandon in the Act IV aria 'Je t'implore et je tremble.'" [Source]

More production photos after the jump.

Sharon Sweet Unleashes Her Magnificent Voice on Verdi

(Click image to launch video of Sharon Sweet singing the finale of "Libera Me" from the Verdi Requiem)

Renée Fleming in Budapest for Hungarian State Opera Concert

The soprano made an appearance at the U.S. Embassy as a guest of Ambassador Eleni Tsakopoulos Kounalakis to discuss the importance of funding the arts and stressed the positive effects for young singers to learn more about each other around the world through technology. Other guests included soprano Erika Miklósa, dancer Popova Aleszja, conductor György Ráth Győriványi, baritone Ádám Horváth, film directors István Szabó and Csaba Káel, Hungarian film commissioner Andrew G. Vajna, folk singer Márta Sebestyén and businessman Gábor Kovács. She also did a bit of sight-seeing and claims to be charmed by Budapest. [Source]

More photos after the jump.