Parterre Box
The announcement that the increasingly Trump-annexed Kennedy Center would be presenting Robert Ward‘s The Crucible seemed too on-the-nose to be true.
Barrie Kosky directs Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. Sickos: “Yes… ha ha ha YES!”
This week, Parterre Box features summer Einspringerin Marigona Qerkezi in some different Verdi fare.
In a world of guilty pleasures, Arabella is mine.
I’d love to have a better answer than ‘movie star directs opera’, but I’m curious to see what Ralph Fiennes does with Eugene Onegin in Paris.
This season, I’m looking forward to Washington Concert Opera’s (WCO) production of Georges Bizet’s Les pêcheurs de perles on 14 March 2026.
So many Frida Leider clips to choose from, but I’ll pick this one because it is so different from what we might think of as the “typical” Wagnerian dramatic soprano.
Nowhere are the contradictions between Wagner’s small-mindedness, his meanness of spirit, and his human insight on clearer display than in Hans Sachs monologue Wahn, Wahn überall Wahn in the third Act of Mesitersinger.
The 1966 Bayreuth Festival production of Tristan and Isolde, conducted by Karl Böhm provides Nilsson with the cast she truly deserved, including Wolfgang Windgassen, Christa Ludwig, Martti Talvela, and Eberhard Waechter.
Wagner month at Parterre Box concludes in grand and explosive style: octogenarian Hanna Schwarz and sexagenarian Karita Mattila in crucial moments from Das Rheingold and Lohengrin.
Die Walküre Met 12/6/1941- Helen Traubel, Astrid Varnay (debut), Kerstin Thorborg, Lauritz Melchior, Friedrich Schorr, Alexander Kipnis, cond. Erich Leinsdorf
Eva Maria Westbroek in her prime, in a role in which I find her unsurpassed among current singers.
As a frequent visitor of Parterre’s Jones Home (ah, the early internet!), I’d be remiss not to share this favorite clip of two queens maximizing their joint slay.
For me, Hans Hotter‘s interpretation of Wotan is a convincingly successful interpretation of this role.
Surprised that none of our favorite Wagner performances happen to come from Tannhaüser, Parterre Box turns to Russell Thomas to fill the gap
I’d long ago given up on my Goldilocks search for a “just right” complete Tristan und Isolde recording starring Jon Vickers, my hands-down tenor of choice.
There was that Tristan.
The complete RCA Furtwängler Tristan is actually my top favorite, but the Ponnelle staging in Bayreuth featuring René Kollo and Johanna Meier is my top sentimental favorite, because it was my first full Wagner performance.
Antonio Pappano conducts a performance live from the BBC Proms
I’d never heard Götterdämmerung in a live performance until 1985 at The Dallas Opera. OMG, so long ago!
Jacquelyn Stucker leads a performance recorded last month in Santa Fe
It took me a while to “warm up” to Wagner.
A performance recorded earlier this month in Salzburg with Lisette Oropesa and Kate Lindsey
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.
