Reviews
Sir Simon Rattle and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra strike (almost) all the right notes in their new recording of Mozart’s Idomeneo.
Tobias Kratzer digs beneath the surface of Strauss‘s Intermezzo in an excellent new DVD from Deutsche Oper Berlin.
A messy new I puritani at the Met is a historic and historical disappointment.
“Call me traditional, but I want to see a silver platter!”
Fine music-making meets a clunker of a production in La Monnaie‘s revival of Norma
A starry (and potentially annual) Christmas gala lights up Carnegie Hall.
Global warming meets the cool factor in The Seasons.
Juan Diego Flórez and Damiano Michieletto concoct an absinthe-fueled fever dream in a new DVD from The Royal Ballet and Opera and Opusarte.
Théâtre de l’Athénée Louis-Jouvet mounts a raucous production of Hervé’s Le petit Faust.
America’s own Faust gets a compelling operatic treatment, courtesy of DC’s IN Series
Matthew Polenzani charms the pants off of Philadelphia.
A patchy production and musical performance can’t dull the edge of Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny at the Komische Oper Berlin
Washington National Opera’s holiday presentation of The Little Prince, based on the classic French novella by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, showcased the company’s Cafritz Young Artists
Washington Concert Opera began its 39th season last month with Christoph Willibald Gluck’s late masterpiece Iphigénie en Tauride.
An incoherent production of Ruslan and Lyudmila at the Hamburg State Opera may dispense with the fantastical, but Glinka‘s magic remains.
Les Arts Florissants present two ravishing programs in Brooklyn and Manhattan.
Big voices overwhelm Claus Guth‘s toothless staging of Khovanshchina at the Berlin Staatsoper.
Across three evenings at the 92nd Street Y, Konstantin Krimmel and Ammiel Bushakevitz traversed all of Schubert‘s major song cycles with stark intensity.
In recital for the Los Angeles Opera, tenor Ben Bliss makes the case for the next stage of his career.
Gulfshore Opera’s vigorous production of Carmen answers a familiar question.
It would be difficult to find a better description for Ambroise Thomas’s newly-recovered Psyché, recently heard in a new recording from Palazzetto Bru Zane, than the one uttered by her suitors: “Charmante Psyché!”
Offenbach‘s Robinson Crusoé is salvaged from obscurity.
It is a physical pleasure to hear Kate Lindsey at close quarters.
“This isn’t an opera that touches on queer themes; it’s a bundle of queer themes tied up in an opera.”
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.
