in the news
“The first two images of Angelina Jolie as famed diva Maria Callas in Pablo Larraín’s upcoming biopic Maria have been revealed”
The catch: Employees would have to agree to a 30 percent cut in pay, half of which would be restored once the Met’s box office returned to pre-pandemic levels.
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.
“In these few minutes we are given a précis of Leontyne Price as an artist.”
“While Renée Fleming performed without an audience, DG Stage offered Puccini’s beloved melodrama Tosca before an outdoor crowd in Naples.”
“The shimmery, creamy voice of the ‘undiva,’ as she is known, is ingrained in America’s cultural memory, at both sad and happy moments.”
“I have almost forgotten what it felt like to sit in a velvet seat at the Met, surrounded by people coughing.”
Christie’s is auctioning nearly 300 scores once owned by Maria Callas…
“The worst public in the opera are these obsessed gays. . . . All these rich guys with nothing to do in their life, just following Anna Netrebko or Jonas Kaufmann on all continents. This is not a real audience for me.”
As revealed in a complete recording which appeared this morning, Anna Netrebko was in fine form in Naples at the anteprima of Tosca at the Piazza del Plebiscito.
I feel like Jonas Kaufmann is trying to tell us something.
“Dying in the third act is much more intense, as the sickness has the same symptoms as COVID-19, so suffocation, pain, agony, fever—all this must be present and real.”
Of 511 epidemiologists polled, about two thirds expect that it will be more than one year from now before they expect to “attend a sporting event, concert or play.”
What options are there for the Met and the other performing arts organizations trying to envision restarting performances in the fall?
A scene from Les Contes d’Hoffmann with Michael Fabiano, which may or may not be seen soon at L’Opéra national de Paris.
The Royal Opera House demonstrates it is “proud to have the values of inclusivity, internationalism and openness at its heart” …
Happy Public Domain Day!
Of the hundreds of opera performances Our Own JJ (not pictured) attended in the 2010s he narrows it down to the ten most glittering highlights.
Though no recording of Sunday’s lauded performance of Lohengrin from the Bayerische Staatsoper has yet surfaced, here are a couple of excerpts from Der Freischütz sung by Johanni van Oostrum.
It’s that time of year again, cher public: the 47th 15th annual announcement of the recipients of the F. Paul Driscoll Awards for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence!
So here’s my question: if Tadzio is 27 years old and consciously flaunting his wang, is it still Death in Venice?
“The Met acted quickly to cast her as Leonore in Fidelio, Chrysothemis in Elektra, Ariadne in Ariadne auf Naxos, Eva in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg and the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier.”
“A flawed leader with visions of grandeur who becomes mentally unstable is a plot line that [Kanye] West might relate to.”
The Metropolitan Opera announced today that longtime [almost 40 years!] Artistic Administrator Jonathan Friend will be stepping down from his position following the end of the 2019–20 season.
Opera San Antonio’s Board of Directors has announced E. Loren Meeker as General and Artistic Director.
