Opera Warhorses

A famous recording I grew up with in the 40s was the 1933 abridged Der Rosenkavalier with that manic maestro Otto Klemperer’s onetime girlfriend Elisabeth Schumann, his maybe-almost-girlfriend Lotte Lehmann and the apparently unpursued Maria Olczewska, all under the baton of Robert Heger, not exactly a household name in the annals of conducting and one [...]

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This Thoughts and Assessments Feature dates from the end of 2009, in which I add some thoughts outside of such other posts as my live performance reviews, my memorializations of the 50 year anniversaries of performances I attended, and my interviews with artists who sing, play, conduct, stage, design or write operas. Each year, I [...]

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This series of memorializations of San Francisco Opera performances of a half-century ago has described my very first subscription series at the San Francisco Opera – row V Orchestra Center Aisle seats on the six opera Thursday night series. I had attended the first four operas of the series on their designated performance nights, but, [...]

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