Parterre Box
A live opening night broadcast from Rome.
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.
William Kentridge‘s production of The Nose. I think it’s his strongest production for the Met, the piece is a masterpiece and this is a time for absurdity. Bring in Maestro Keri-Lynn Wilson who did such an outstanding job with Mtsensk.
A live streaming performance from The Dallas Opera.
Jessye Norman sings the title role of a performance recorded in New York in 1985
A rare performance of Mascagni’s opera recorded at the Wexford Festival last fall.
Both a brilliant composition and an outstanding production
John Dexter and David Hockney‘s French triple bill of Poulenc‘s Les mamelles de Tirésias, Satie‘s Parade, and Ravel‘s L’enfant et les sortilèges, last seen in 2002. This clip is from Barcelona but you can enjoy Gabriel Bermúdez nonetheless.
The Met was built for Saint-François d’Assise. It is a huge work, and it needs a huge space. And Ingo Metzmacher.
Because we have no shortage of mezzos that would be great in this rep
Danielle de Niese can’t get off the phone in a performance recorded in Wales last month
In François Girard‘s production.
… with Erin Morley
Michael Spyres as Pirro; Juan Diego Flórez, Javier Camerena, or Lawrence Brownlee as Oreste; Aigul Akhmetshina as Andromaca; Anastasia Bartoli as Ermione
Lisette Oropesa and Aigul Akhmetshina come to blows in a performance recorded last fall in Madrid.
George London and Leonie Rysanek lead a performance from 1960
Mignon of Ambroise Thomas was performed at the Met many times but has not been for decades.
Opera Lafayette and OperaCréole present Edmond Dédé‘s rediscovered opera in a live stream from the Dekelboum Concert Hall at the University of Maryland
A live opening night broadcast from Munich
Esclarmonde is the only answer to the question of what the Met should revive.
It is time for the Met to revive Puccini‘s masterpiece and his best work IMHO, Il trittico.
It’s fascinating, and gorgeous, and over the top, and it requires a director to make actual decisions in a way that causes clutching of pearls when it happens in a production of a better known opera.
The San Francisco Opera announces its 2025-26 season.
The American bass, a fixture of the Metropolitan Opera between 1967 and 2018, was 83.
Der Freischütz has not been seen at the Met since 1972!
STEMdiva status
Ahead of a special boozy, bawdy Valentine’s Day concert, artistic director of Opera Lafayette Patrick Quigley speaks with soprano Maya Kherani about her journey from MIT to rising American Baroque star.
A Baroque Valentine’s with Opera Lafayette | Feb | DC & NYC
Celebrate love in all its guises with tender ballads, amorous duets, cheeky verses, and bawdy drinking songs plus food, cocktails and wine.