Spring Breakdown 2016: The Recitals

We look at the best solo performance of the year so far.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Lisette Oropesa (right) in recital at the Park Avenue Armory.
Photo by Da Peng Nuo.

It takes nerve to go out on stage by yourself, or to take the stage with just your voice and a hopefully friendly pianist providing accompaniment. That's the premise of this look at five great recitals for piano and voice that Superconductor was witness to in the spring of 2016. Presented in just-about-chronological order.

The Superconductor Untitled Awards

The Five Best Performances* at the Metropolitan Opera...this season.
(*that I saw and wrote about.)
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Our award trophy. Well, it's really a big, weird abstract sculpture
(Untitled, by Mary Callery) in the Metropolitan Opera House.

We are at mid-May and as I start getting ready to work on next season's Metropolitan Opera coverage, it's time to wrap up 2012-2013 at the big house. Here are the five best shows I attended in a very long opera season. I've done this before, but this year, the winners get to print out this article with a nice digital blow-up of the Untitled sculpture located over the proscenium in the Sybil Harrington Auditorium. (Shipping, handling and sculpture not included.)

Before you ask, I couldn't get a ticket for Dialogues of the Carmelites. I heard it was great.

Since this year's schedule was heavily loaded toward Wagner and Verdi, (with five operas by one and seven by the other) it's not surprising to see that three of this year's top five are in fact, Verdi operas. Other honorable mentions this season include Pretty Yende in Le Comte Ory, Lyudmila Montyrska in Aida and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in pretty much anything they played, but especially in Parsifal, Götterdämmerung and The Tempest.

And the winners are....