Parterre Box
Edita Gruberova as Donn’Anna — “Crudele? Ah no, mio bene … Non mi dir”
Lorraine Hunt Lieberson sings Mozart’s great K 523, ‘Abendempfindung an Laura’ live at Ravinia with Peter Serkin, August 2004
The celebrated Austrian director, known for his picturesque and conservative stagings, was 94.
For many opera lovers of the Baby Boomer generation, German bass Kurt Moll (1938-2017) was Sarastro, exuding wisdom and kindness through his unaffected bearing and incomparably rich, homogeneous sound.
Così is an almost post-modern opera, in that it mocks the bourgeois construction of ‘love’ as a socially-sanctioned precursor to matrimony.
A new play by Peter Danish opening at New York’s New World Stages in March will reimagine a meeting between Leonard Bernstein and Herbert von Karajan
On 23 July 1986, almost certainly more people simultaneously experienced a Mozart aria than ever had before or since when Arleen Auger sang at Andrew and Fergie‘s wedding.
No one in recording history short of Hermann Jadlowker could do these florid Mozart tenor roles like Michael Spyres
It’s daring, it’s risky, it’s ever so much fun.
A performance recorded last fall in New York
A performance recorded in Munich two weeks ago with Pretty Yende and Xabier Anduaga
“D’Oreste d’Ajace” – Carol Vaness
“Tenor SeokJong Baek will sing the role of Radamès in the January 4 and 7 performances of Verdi’s Aida, replacing Piotr Beczala, who has withdrawn due to illness.”
Ponnelle directing and Böhm conducting Le Nozze di Figaro with Prey, Freni, Fischer-Dieskau, Te Kanawa, and Ewing leading the cast. A classier performance of the piece can hardly be imagined.
Fritz Wunderlich‘s singing is so wonderful and effortless that no further commentary is needed.
This took a lot of thought and consideration and there are just TOO many to choose from. But when it comes to vintage performances…
A live Viennese New Year’s broadcast
Anna Netrebko has withdrawn from her role debut in next month’s performances of Ariadne auf Naxos at the Wiener Staatsoper
A performance of Schönberg‘s oratorio recorded earlier this fall in Milan
An archival performance from 1982 recorded in New York
A rare performance of Stanislaw Moniuszko‘s opera recorded this summer in Warsaw
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.
