Harry Rose
Harry Rose, based in Providence, Rhode Island, is currently pursuing a PhD in Italian Studies at Brown University. Starting out blogging independently as Opera Teen in 2013, he holds the auspicious distinction of being the youngest writer to ever contribute to parterre box (at age 14) and has had the pleasure and challenge of writing for the rigorously discerning cher public since 2012. Increasingly niche hobbies and interests include opera, ballet, theatrical goings-on of the fin-de-siècle, and gatekeeping Camp.
Uneven operas, like Verdi’s Ernani, which just recently finished its Scala run, more often work as theatre on the micro level than the macro.
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.
This new production of the 1847 original version of Verdi’s first stab at Shakespeare features the extraordinary performances of Luca Salsi and Anna Pirozzi as the Thane of Cawdor and his merry wife.
Verdi’s Attila is hardly a rarity in Italy the way it is in the United States.
America’s longest-standing theatrical lightning rod, Robert Wilson premiered his ethereal, time-collapsing production of Le trouvère.
I was overjoyed by the coincidence that Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival would be presenting Façade.
The Barber of Seville turned out to be the most overall solid production of the year and even a bit of old-fashioned fun.
I mean, how often does one get to hear Bernstein’s gorgeous, rollicking, and varied score nursed by a full orchestra and the artistic resources of an opera company?
A regular day in 2018 Washington, D.C., or Verdi’s Don Carlo?
If opera as a genre in justified in its claim to one particular story, history confirms that the Orpheus myth would be that story.
Out of a literal perforation in the horizon of the Nebraskan prairie emerges Proving Up, the most convincing case I have ever seen for modern American opera.
Vincenzo Bellini’s La Straniera was presented at George Washington University’s dreary Lisner Hall on Sunday.
Could Barbara Hannigan be Joni Mitchell’s classical counterpart?
Washington National Opera’s lukewarm Alcina, unthreateningly misguided in both its musical and theatrical values, made little impact.
How on Earth will these fictitious luminaries of turn-of-the-century Swedish society keep their clothes clean?
Aida certainly has its longueurs.
On Thursday evening, the Teatro alla Scala audience didn’t watch the familiar presentation of a “wayward woman” who overcomes moral inferiority only to be robbed of happiness when she finally deserved it.
Greetings from the Windy City, where I, Opera Teen (not pictured) am at the press conference eagerly awaiting the announcement of Lyric Opera of Chicago’s 2016-2017 season!
Throw in a trio of murders and a healthy splash of vodka and you have, more or less, the plot of Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk.
Verdi’s Macbeth poses a challenge to any company with the audacity to mount it.
You can tell a lot about someone from their garage sale.
There’s something charming and almost irresistible about early Verdi opera. I always equate it to seeing a grade school test from Albert Einstein.
As an opera, La Traviata is defined by its characters.
Verdi’s only successful comic opera, Falstaff, is notably hard to produce.
