Performance Reviews
Reviews of operatic, vocal, and classical performances at the Metropolitan Opera, Carnegie Hall, all across America, and around the world.
Reviews of operatic, vocal, and classical performances at the Metropolitan Opera, Carnegie Hall, all across America, and around the world.
Those of us in New York City who relish 17th century Italian vocal music were offered an enticing banquet over the past few weeks.
Émigré, unfortunately, fails to do justice, either musically or theatrically, to this group of refugees or to the Shanghainese who took them in.
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.
From a musical perspective, the evening came together admirably. As a work of theater, though, it was as stale as last week’s takeout.
What does it mean to be a “gender transcendent diva?”
Finding Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia on the Academy of Vocal Arts calendar was both a pleasure and something of a surprise—the latter because the work is far from central repertoire, even in a conservatory.
While you may need to bring along your Dramamine, the Met’s new production of La forza del destino, does—eventually—spin fast enough to achieve escape velocity.
One of the first things James Conlon did when he took over the reins as Music Director of LA Opera was create the “Recovered Voices” project, producing operas that had been suppressed by the Nazis.
Anna Bolena is one of the many works by Donizetti which, after their modern recovery in the second part of the last century, have both never fully left the stage while simultaneously never becoming a repertoire staple Lucia di Lammermoor or L’elisir d’amore.
I watched the finals for this year’s George and Nora London Foundation competition and would like to offer, if not a traditional review, a brief roundup of who I found exceptionally watchable and whom I think you, dear parterre boxers, should watch out for in the next few years.
The phrase “immersive Coffee Cantata experience” evokes being dipped into a giant, boiling vat of java.
With its sumptuous wood paneling, frescoed ceilings, and various Gilded Age trappings, the Park Avenue Armory’sBoard of Officers Room certainly is not a bad place to spend Valentine’s Day—even better when it plays host to equally sumptuous music-making.
Taylor Mac isn’t known for being short-winded.
Real estate is hot along the Acela corridor right now: as proof, Judith will have toured at least three castles in New York and Boston between this spring and last.
It seemed like such a great idea on paper.
How many hours of our lives are spent looking back?
I had some trepidation about attending Terence Blanchard’s opera Champion because the “sport” of boxing has never appealed to me.
Traditional Christianity has always used the threat of dying unabsolved and going to Hell as a tool to get us not only to accept Jesus but also obey the dictates of the Church. Last week in New York, two classical works touched on the theme of repentance and absolution.
Boston Symphony Orchestra recently confirmed an infinitely renewable contract upon Andris Nelsons, its music director since 2014. To understand why, one needed little more evidence than the outfit’s recent visit to Carnegie Hall.
The newest Italian production of L’incoronazione di Poppea was a splendid example of how a 17th century opera can be performed in the best possible way today
The flashing eyes, the floating hair, and the inexplicable barefootnedness during the second half of Saturday night’s performance confirmed one thing: Kristine Opolais is back.
Anyone arriving at Lyric Opera of Chicago’s production of Rossini’s Cinderella (La Cenerentola) expecting the Disney-fied version of the story will be in for a surprise.
It says something about Boston’s opera scene that one of the most consistently ambitious events of the opera season is a one-off performance played by the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras.
Light streamed through the stained-glass windows of the Space at Irondale, once a church, during the Saturday matinée of Heather Christian’s Terce as part of the Prototype Festival.
Two months ago, when climate activists interrupted a performance of Tannhaüser at the Met, the banners they unfurled from the balconies announced, “no opera on a dead planet.”
