Christopher Corwin
Christopher Corwin began writing for parterre box in 2011 under the pen name “DeCaffarrelli.” His work has also appeared in , The New York Times, Musical America, The Observer, San Francisco Classical Voice and BAMNotes. Like many, he came to opera via the Saturday Met Opera broadcasts which he began listening to at age 11. His particular enthusiasm is 17th and 18th century opera. Since 2015 he has curated the weekly podcast Trove Thursday on parterre box presenting live recordings.
Another five-Thursday month invites “Trove Thursday” to offer a combo of shorter works.
Tell us: What was the best of 2025?
Parterre Box concludes the thrilling first year of Talk of the Town by inviting your lightning rod opinions on several more categories of operatic argumentation.
In Andrea Chenier an unexpected Canadian star-tenor relishes beheading alongside a far less well-known Italian diva: Jon Vickers and Ilva Ligabue.
I was extraordinarily happy Monday evening to encounter Angel Blue and Russell Thomas as Mimi and Rodolfo.
“It’s not easy being green”: especially if you’re the two greatest Italian opera composers.
“Trove Thursday” offers a belated 55th birthday nod to Dmitri Hvorostovsky with a blazing live performance of Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Tsar’s Bride.
For my early self-birthday gift “Trove Thursday” offers a Handel-orgy of rarely done works.
New York fans of 17th century Italian vocal music should be rejoicing this month.
“Trove Thursday” marks Monteverdi’s 450th birthday with a rare broadcast of his towering final work L’Incoronazione di Poppea.
The 55th New York Film Festival presented the world premiere of Susan Froemke’s marvelous new documentary The Opera House in a special one-time-only screening at the Metropolitan Opera.
Arabella with Wolfgang Sawallisch conducting a prime-time 1980s Munich cast.
Last night was my fourth or fifth wade into the slough of Bartlett Sher’s production of Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann at the Met since its premiere in 2009.
Bellini’s Norma Monday evening didn’t at all improve on the production it was replacing.
Ali Baba ou Les Quarantes Voleurs continues straight-tone September with Teresa Stich-Randall as its heroine while Alfredo Kraus scales the heights with another Nadir.
“Trove Thursday” presents a performance from 40 years ago: an inspired Renata Scotto as Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur.
Is this not Puccini’s greatest opera, his most human, least manipulative?
Today’s offering is an electric performance of Verdi’s early potboiler Attila conducted by Giuseppe Sinopoli.
“Trove Thursday” celebrates the thrilling Finnish soprano Karita Matilla in the ultimate diva role.
I first went bonkers for Bellini’s masterpiece during the previous century when the Met remounted it for Joan Sutherland.
Bard College presented a semi-staged concert of Halka on Saturday evening as part of its impressively wide-ranging two-week “Chopin and his World” festival.
A rollicking performance of his delightful comic opera Der geduldige Sokrates featuring a fine cast and the magnificent Akademie für Alte Musik conducted by René Jacobs.
“Trove Thursday” presents Janet Baker in Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde from 1970 partnered by Jess Thomas and conducted by Josef Krips.
Due to bandwidth limits “Trove Thursday” must post some more modest offerings in months with five Thursdays.
You’d think by now I’d know better than to make snap judgments about an opera or a singer—but apparently not.
Can a surfeit of pleasure become—in the end—unsatisfying?
