For Those Who Love Opera

Modest Menzinsky
(April 29, 1875 - December 11, 1935)

James McCracken
(December 16, 1926 – April 29, 1988)

was an American operatic tenor. At the time of his death The New York Times stated that McCracken was “the most successful dramatic tenor yet produced by the United States and a pillar of the Metropolitan Opera during the 1960s and 1970s.”

What do you think of this opera?

Die Frau ohne Schatten is an opera in three acts by Richard Strauss with a libretto by his long-time collaborator, the poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It was written between 1911 and either 1915 or 1917. When it premiered at the Vienna State Opera on 10 October 1919, critics and audiences were unenthusiastic. Many cited problems with Hofmannsthal's complicated and heavily symbolic libretto.