Questo e Quello
Happy 65th birthday to baritone and teacher Sanford Sylvan!
“New York City Opera will present, in a rare New York appearance, beloved soprano Aprile Millo in concert.”
Philadelphia is a city famous for its musical institutions—so, of course, at this time of year Messiah performances abound.
French early music group Ensemble Correspondances offered two of the year’s very best concerts.
An interview during rehearsals for Le nozze di Figaro at the Salzburg Festival, 2006.
On this day in 1959 soprano Birgit Nilsson made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Isolde.
“This guy stood up and asked the diva what it felt like getting trapped inside the stage pyramid during the Met’s premiere of Antony and Cleopatra.”
“Give the gift of Renée!”
Assembling casts for three works: Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde for Karita Mattila, Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, and Aribert Reimann’s Troades.
Norman Lebrecht is repeating gossip Conrad Osborne heard from Stephen Blier.
The legendary 2005 Willy Decker production of La traviata at the Salzburg Festival.
On this day in 1937 soprano Zinka Milanov made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Leonora in Il trovatore.
At Friday’s opening of Otello, there was a good deal of interesting going on, though not all of it necessarily onstage.
“Non mi dispiace” seemed to be the general consensus in the loggione December 7 when Verdi’s Attila came roaring into La Scala to open the 2018-19 season.
Joining Anna Netrebko in this 2004 performance of the first act duet from Lucia di Lammermoor is tenor Marcelo Álvarez.
Born on this day in 1770 composer Ludwig van Beethoven.
La Cieca invites the cher public (not pictured) to hear and discuss this afternoon’s broadcast of La traviata from the Met.
The long evening didn’t achieve the degree of celebration it should have.
At one point I spent a couple of months on the dole and dollar record shopping had a number of obvious virtues as a pastime.
Whether you love the 2018 Berlin Staatsoper Tristan and Isolde depends on what you think the opera is about.
Anna Netrebko sings the first movement of Gliere’s Concerto for Coloratura Soprano and Orchestra in 2003.
On this day in 1952 Bette Davis returned to Broadway in Two’s Company.
Conductor Gustavo Dudamel makes his long-awaited Met debut tonight at 8:00 PM.
“Carl Tanner will sing the title role in Verdi’s Otello in tonight’s season premiere performance, replacing Stuart Skelton, who is ill.”
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.
