Parterre Box
I’m cheating by choosing TV over a movie, but I can’t not pick the Hamlet episode of Gilligan’s Island.
It’s a total fraud, but I have always loved Maytime‘s “Csaritza” a fake “MGM” opera based on themes from Tchaikovsky‘s 5th symphony.
A live broadcast from New York
A brutal, chilling, gory final scene leading to a triumphant and goose bumps inducing final moments.
“Ebben, ne andro lontana” sung by Wihelmenia Wiggins Fernandez in Diva is a gorgeous woman in a beautiful dress singing a wonderful area in a legitimate concert venue. Great singing in my favorite French film.
parterre box presents for your comparing pleasure excerpts of three Italian sopranos trying their (poker) hands at Puccini’s Minnie: Carmen Giannatasio, Chiara Isotton, and Anna Pirozzi
Watching Fitzcarraldo at a very young age obviously turned me into a baby opera queen.
Bass-baritone Nicholas Brownlee is the winner of the $50,000 2025 Richard Tucker Award
Max Ophuls, one of the greatest film directors, made masterpieces in French, German, English and Italian, as well as an amusing comedy in Dutch; he also clearly loved opera.
Brian Jadge will be replaced by Brandon Jovanovich in the upcoming revival of The Queen of Spades, announces the Met press office
The terzettino from Così fan tutte makes an unexpected and unforgettable appearance in John Schlesinger‘s 1971 Sunday Bloody Sunday.
As opera and operetta “had a moment” in major Hollywood motion pictures starring the likes of Lawrence Tibbett, Jeannette MacDonald, and Nelson Eddy during the Great Depression, it made perfect sense that a canny showman like Mae West would want a piece of the action.
Visconti’s masterpiece and one of the great filmed sequences of opera.
Eleonora Burrato and Jonathan Tetelman lead a performance from Berlin recorded last week with Kirill Petrenko conducting
A performance recorded last fall in New York
After seeing The Fifth Element I wanted to see Inva Mula live, which I did (Nanetta, two years after the movie) and she certainly did not disappoint!
While the thoroughly established Lawrence Brownlee reprises his familiar Count Almaviva in the Met’s Barbiere di Siviglia, parterre box calls your attention to another Mr. Brownlee making waves: Nicholas Brownlee.
One of the most moving scenes in film, accompanied by Callas‘s iconic singing.
Sofia Coppola‘s cult classic Marie Antoinette is best known for blending a whimsically baroque visuals with a post-punk score.
As a beginning freshman in college at CSU Long Beach, I was cast in my first opera – the chorus for L’Elisir d’amore ( performed in English as “The Elixir of Love”).
Sign up for Parterre’s free newsletter.
Exclusive opera reviews, commentary, and top reads
delivered to your email weekly…ish.