Callum Blackmore is a writer and a researcher currently completing a PhD in historical musicology at Columbia University. Before moving to New York, Callum was awarded degrees from the University of Auckland and the University of Leeds, and has worked with opera companies in New Zealand and the United Kingdom. His research currently focuses on opera and politics in the wake of the French Revolution.
There is a rich history of sung constitutions. During the French Revolution, when the new Republic was changing constitutions every couple of years, men of letters created pastiches, comprised of the most popular opera arias of the day, which presented and commented upon these founding documents. Read more »
The program for the American Chamber Opera Company’s premiere of Melissa Shiflett’s My Undying Love: An Amusement included not one but two glaring typos: not only was the name of the wrong opera printed on the first page, but two of the three dates listed for the season on the front cover were in 2016. Read more »
We are living in an age of mass incarceration. In the United States alone, the prison population has swelled to over two million, enabled, in part, by the construction of so-called “megaprisons,” built en masse in the late 20th century. Read more »
parterre box, “the most essential blog in opera” (New York Times), is now booking advertising for autumn 2019. Email us at advertising@parterre.com and be sure to ask about our deep not-for-profit discounts!
Since its founding in 2007, Rhymes with Opera has emerged as a leading voice in the performing and commissioning of contemporary opera. In their recent double bill at the 124 Bank St Theater the company premiered two powerful, urgent new works which made a compelling case for the enduring relevance of opera in the 21st century. Read more »
Iestyn Davies is, of course, a renowned Handellian, and he sang Handel’s music with clarity, restraint, and precision.
At the Metropolitan Opera’s Götterdämmerung on Saturday afternoon, the fires which consumed the Gods burned lukewarm.
Stefan Vinke’s Siegfried was not so much brawny and terrestrial, but heady and mercurial
The finals on Sunday seemed a bit like the modern-day operatic equivalent of the Roman colosseum.
Cher Public