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.
A semi-staging of Dido and Aeneas starring Broadway divas and frequent collaborators Kelli O’Hara and Victoria Clark seemed a screwy idea at best.
“Trove Thursday” presents Jonas Kaufmann‘s only performance (thus far) of Max in Weber’s Der Freischütz.
The no-star, slapstick revival of John Dexter’s 37-year-old production of Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail that opened Friday night proved James Levine’s tenure as Music Director of the Met will end in two weeks with neither a whimper nor a bang.
“Trove Thursday” salutes the Czech soprano Gabriela Benacková with a rare broadcast of Robert Schumann’s only opera Genoveva in which she sings the title role.
I was, to my astonishment, quite bored.
The haunted Mycenae of Patrice Chéreau’s enthralling production of Richard Strauss’s Elektra had seized its viewers in an unrelenting vise that never relaxed even at its quietly shattering conclusion.
“Trove Thursday” continues its mini Shakespeare festival with a delightful performance by the New York City Opera of Die Lüstigen Weiber von Windsor.
Kathleen Battle is back in the headlines returning to the Met this fall after more than 20 years, and “Trove Thursday” celebrates with a gala Falstaff.
That Placido Domingo and James Levine, the Met’s inexorable septuagenarians, would team up yet again—on April Fools’ Day, no less—for a revival of Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra occasioned an uncomfortable degree of doubt and dread.
In January the New York Philharmonic announced the appointment of Jaap van Zweden as its next music director commencing the 2018-19 season.
During its first-ever Roberto Devereux Thursday evening one felt transported back to the Volpe years: four of the Met’s biggest stars shining in an opulent (if occasionally perverse) but reassuringly non-challenging production paid for by Sybil B. Harrington.
Forty-five years ago today, Stephen Sondheim’s brilliant, frustrating Follies played its first Broadway preview at the Winter Garden Theatre.
“Trove Thursday” presents Campra’s first “hit” L’Europe Galante in a broadcast from Versailles’s Opéra Royal by Les Musiciens du Louvre conducted by Marc Minkowski.
Sunday afternoon at Carnegie Hall two remarkable slices of soprano-heaven were served up, first by Carolyn Sampson and then by Erin Morley, during the second act of Handel’s Orlando.
As portrayed by Vittorio Grigolo, Nemorino was a manic self-absorbed, probably bipolar, stalker who—against all odds and good sense—gets the poor girl.
The wonderful Spanish mezzo Teresa Berganza celebrates her 81st birthday next week and “Trove Thursday” gets the party started.
These days a cadre of voluble opera-goers regularly issues dire warnings that anyone about to attend this or that production at the Met should close her eyes and just listen rather than witness yet another Peter Gelb regie “atrocity.”
The operas of Saverio Mercadante are often said to be among those 19th century Italian works most worthy of revival.
It took the better part of a decade—including two high-profile cancelations—or New York to finally hear Anna Netrebko in recital.
A 1984 performance of Handel’s Orlando with Marilyn Horne, Valerie Masterson, Marvis Martin, Jeffery Gall and Robert Lloyd, conducted by Charles Mackerras.
An opera revolving around chastity vows, adultery, slut-shaming, lesbianism, transvestism and much more!
Ana Maria Martinez’s tremendously impressive Cio-Cio-San dominated the season premiere of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly at the Met.
On her 90th birthday “Trove Thursday” presents the late great Belgian mezzo Rita Gorr parenting Régine Crespin in Massenet’s Hérodiade.
Sir Richard Eyre’s new Manon Lescaut at the Met Friday night demonstrated no particular aptitude for opera.
Tell us: What’s your favorite Verdi performance?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
