Tonight, we give it up for Lucia Popp, an Austrian-Czech opera singer who turned to music after studying medicine. Popp was a remarkable Viennese operetta singer, who was named an Austrian Kammersängerin. Sadly, she died on this day in 1993, but her beautiful voice still lives on. This one's in honor of my mother, who…
From Radio-Television of Slovenia, your newest source for everything amazing, comes an opera singer and classical orchestra performing Psy's addictive-obnoxious mega-hit. I can't lie, I don't love the original song or opera all that much, but this is the most wonderful. I can't decide who I love more — the overly…
Retta was on Conan last night, talking about her love for opera and how everyone wants to do her or be her (OK, the second part was all me, but you were thinking it ADMIT IT).
Yes, it's ironic that Anna Nicole Smith's tawdry life is being played out at the Royal Opera in Covent Garden. But it's downright poetic that it's apparently a critical hit. In death, the buxom blonde has finally been able to achieve something that she never quite could in life: She's being taken seriously. And by …
[Sydney, November 9: The Australian PM speaks during a memorial service for opera singer Dame Joan Sutherland. Sutherland was recognized for her contribution to the renaissance of the bel canto repertoire. Image via Getty.]
Coming soon to a small screen near you: "Anna Nicole, The Opera." Smith's life story will soon become the subject of a BBC Four production, with a Dutch soprano playing the title role.
[Baden-Baden, May 19. Image via Getty.]
[Beijing, April 26. Image via Getty]
[Beijing, April 12. Image via Getty]
[New York, April 9. Image via AP]
From the creators of Jerry Springer: The Opera comes a similar treatment for Anna Nicole Smith. Except, unlike Springer, she's dead. Which makes this all feel a little awkward. [AP]
[Paris, January 26. Image via Getty]
Soprano Daniela Dessi was set to play the lead in Franco Zeffirelli's new La Traviata, but quit the production after the legendary director made a crack about her build:
[Dresden, August 23. Image via Getty]
Hildegard Behrens, a dramatic sopranao famed for her interpretation of Wagner, has died at 72. The cause of death was apparently aneurism. [NYT]
Ever since Deborah Voigt was fired
Betty Allen, who overcame a childhood of incredible challenges to become a world-renowned mezzo-soprano and voice teacher, has died at 83. Ms. Allen was also a famed arts administrator, running the Harlem School of the Arts for 13 years. [NYT]
[Munich, June 16. Image via Flynet]
[Bregenz, Austria; June 17. Image via Getty]
Already set upon by nature, time, gravity, ballet dancers are hit extra-hard by the economy.
The death of the original "Bess" from Porgy & Bess comes at a time when people are reflecting on breaking the color barrier in classical music.
In 2004, Deborah Voigt, a renowned opera singer, was fired from a London production of Ariadne auf Naxos because, according to the New York Times, she was "too heavy to wear a sleek black cocktail dress that [the director] deemed integral to his concept." The opera company had to pay out Voigt's contract even though she…
The life and death of Anna Nicole Smith is being turned into an opera by composer Richard Thomas (who wrote the Jerry Springer musical), and will debut at the Royal Opera House in London in 2010. Thomas said that Smith's story is a "classic American tale about celebrity" that is "intrinsically operatic." [Telegraph]
