I saw quite a lot of performances in 2025 and many was very good (Pagliacci with Kaufmann in Vienna, Tosca in London with Netrebko, the new Rheingold by Kratzer in Munich, Iphigénie en Tauride in Paris, maybe Parsifal thanks to Sokolowski and some more), though none was among the greatest of my life.

Looking back, this Stiffelio is the one I cherish the most. It’s not an opera I like usually but the production by 95-year-old Pier Luigi Pizzi was perfect, intelligent, and beautiful and Gregory Kunde made a major addition to his large repertory; it’s the perfect part for his present voice and he was vocally terrific and dramatically excellent. Of course, the beauty of the relatively small theater of Piacenza added to the charm of the evening.