“This is so glamorous, this is really the jet-setting opera lifestyle that people think I lead,” said Renee Fleming, the world-renowned American opera singer with the enchanting voice that is in such high demand, she never seems to take a vacation.
Ms. Fleming, a luscious 49, was speaking over the phone after getting off the Read More
“He’s got everything I encourage my students to aspire to,” Marilyn Horne said to me a few weeks ago during the intermission of a recital by the young Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Flórez in Oberlin College’s acoustically wonderful Finney Chapel. “His understanding of musical style is impeccable. His sound is glorious. And he really connects. Read More
You don’t spend 16 years giving orders to the biggest stars in opera without having an opera-size personality of your own. All that the Metropolitan Opera’s general manager, Joseph Volpe, who retires at the end of the current season, lacks as a rival to Luciano Pavarotti is a voice capable of bringing an audience to Read More
Hearing Plácido Domingo in his Carnegie Hall recital on a recent Sunday afternoon offered a disconcerting lesson in one of the trickier things about the art of classical music performance-the challenge of self-exposure. Mr. Domingo has been the most visible-and commanding-singer of our time. But until now, we have heard him only in costume as Read More
