Parterre Box
The ultimate in Diva worship – where she can do no wrong.
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.
Daniele Rustioni leads a verismo double bill recorded in Munich last month
Nothing helped me understand Verdi better than Alessandro Manzoni‘s I promessi sposi.
Konstantin Krimmel plays the title role in a live broadcast from Munich
parterre box highlights the livestreamed opening of this year’s Munich Opera Festival with a bit of tonight’s Don Giovanni, Konstantin Krimmel, in another Mozart opera
A live video broadcast from Vienna starring Anna Netrebko and Yusif Eyvazov
I first read Edith Hamilton‘s classic book on Greek mythology about sixty years ago.
What better beach read than a juicy diva autobiography?
The earliest days of recording told by F.W. Gaisberg, the man who recorded Patti, Melba, Moreschi, and Tamagno among many others.
Norma returns La Scala this week for the first time in nearly 40 years and parterre box marks the occasion with titular druidess Marina Rebeka singing a bit of Verdi
Not really an opera book but, c’mon, it’s Bach.
Nicky Spence sings the title role in a performance recorded earlier this spring in Cardiff
I did not expect Dorothy Kirsten‘s autobiography to be so rewarding a read: I did so twice.
A reminder to relax and refresh this summer by sharing your innermost operatic thoughts for The Talk of the Town
A live broadcast from Venice featuring Anna Caterina Antonacci as Madame de Croissy
parterre box looks forward to the official start of summer tomorrow with a wistfully pointed performance of Samuel Barber‘s “Knoxville: Summer of 1915” by soprano Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha
Yuval Sharon and the American Modern Opera Company meld Monteverdi and George Lewis in a live performance from Lincoln Center
A juicy, guilty pleasure read!
According to the memoirs of Alma Mahler, her third husband, Franz Werfel used to wander around the cafés of Paris with one of his chums, singing arias from obscure Verdi operas at the top of their lungs until the management would ask them to move on.
Giovanni Verga‘s short story (which he adapted as a play with Giuseppe Giacosa) provides the basis for Mascagni‘s famous opera.
