Jungfer Marianne Leitmetzerin
This week, a Janácek trilogy: Sárka, Osud and Zápisník zmizelého.
In our circle, Mexico City in the summer was the opera capital of the world from the late 1940s and early 1950.
The very first Vienna post-war performance of Elektra.
Jonas Kaufmann announced that he feels ready to return to the stage after calling in sick since last autumn
A classic 1974 New York City Opera La traviata with Beverly Sills, John Stewart and Dominic Cossa conducted by Julius Rudel.
Let’s celebrate the coming of 2017 with a peek at Elsa Lanchester’s cabaret act consisting of bawdy Cockney songs.
This week features Roger Norrington leading a December 2006 performance of Berlioz/ Enfance du Christ from Berlin
“Good God—an adult musical!”
Anita Cerquetti had one of the most remarkable, most brief careers in opera in the past century.
This week’s opera is Die Liebe der Danae.
I offer a bit of operatic turkey, P.D.Q. Bach’s half-act opera The Stoned Guest, as an aural amuse-bouche.
Leonie Rysanek, would have turned 90 today.
What to do with all those glorious short operas: play them alone or find companion pieces?
Verdi’s Macbeth gets true blood-and-guts treatment from Guillermo Sarabia and the legendary Marisa Galvany.
A simply gorgeous performance of Gluck’s Orphée et Euridice starring Juan Diego Flórez.
Works inspired by William Shakespeare are everywhere in 2016.
Adriana Lecouvreur with the 1970s dream cast of Montserrat Caballé, José Carreras, and Fiorenza Cossotto.
Jonny spielt auf, the second opera by 26-year-old composer Ernest K?enek, was such a huge success after its 1927 Leipzig premiere that in the following season it was performed 491 times in Germany alone.
I offer an alternative to those who aren’t fans of Wagner: Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito from the house where it premiered.
Your alte Jungfer’s requisite Kuschelkatze (pictured) arrived on my doorstep in Mariahilf with the name of Tristan.
Just 85 years ago, four of Italy’s greatest opera stars gathered at Teatro all Scala for an historic event: the first-ever recording of Arrigo Boito’s sole complete opera, Mefistofele.
Among the highlights were concert performances of Jules Massenet’s Thaïs and Otto Nicolai’s Il templario.
Mimìs, Violettas, and Cio-Cio-Sans may live, love, and meet their ends without a tear from me, but I have never left a performance of Janácek’s The Cunning Little Vixen dry-eyed.
Falstaff, Verdi’s totally unexpected, final, great comedic roar.
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.
