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.
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.
STEMdiva status
Ahead of a special boozy, bawdy Valentine’s Day concert, artistic director of Opera Lafayette Patrick Quigley speaks with soprano Maya Kherani about her journey from MIT to rising American Baroque star.
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.”
Julia Bullock seems to fission herself multiple times over during the course of her newest, widely ranging recital program.
The beginning of Mary Kouyoumdjian’s Adoration is marked by silence. The young Simon, played by Sammy Ivany, lies on his stomach, scribbling in a notebook.
“The mystery of her voice gripped my soul,” Sharpless tells Pinkerton at the beginning of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly. One could say the same thing of Aleksandra Kurzak’s remarkable portrayal of the title role, the main reason to catch the Met’s latest revival.
Angel Island seemed a piece with two simultaneous goals: to musically interpret the poetry of Angel Island detainees and to educate its audience on the history of Asian and particularly Chinese immigration to America.
Nothing says “diva” like an insane recital program.
This Carmen, in other words, was somewhat less radical than its initial image suggested.
New York shall never be in need of another Messiah to assist to during the holiday season, but a new tradition is beginning to crystallize at the cavernous St. John the Divine to rival it.
The whole performance was reminiscent of long-forgotten ways of doing opera (ways which still find the full approval of an Italian public tired of proposals that are all too “experimental”)
There is a strong case to be made that George Fridrich Handel is the composer most suited to the present moment.
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.
A Baroque Valentine’s with Opera Lafayette | Feb | DC & NYC
Celebrate love in all its guises with tender ballads, amorous duets, cheeky verses, and bawdy drinking songs plus food, cocktails and wine.