Recording 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.
Juan Diego Flórez and Damiano Michieletto concoct an absinthe-fueled fever dream in a new DVD from The Royal Ballet and Opera and Opusarte.
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!”
Tobias Kratzer‘s time-traveling Arabella from the Deutsche Oper Berlin, now available on DVD, turns the opera’s problems into its strengths.
A new recording of Boito‘s Nerone from Cagliari shows off an epic opera with fire and flamboyance
Jonas Kaufmann has a new lieder album called Doppelgänger, but the contents of the album vary depending on how you purchase it.
The miracle workers at Boston Modern Orchestra Project and Odyssey Opera have published another premiere recording of a work that I’ve long heard of but never heard: Dominick Argento’s The Voyage of Edgar Allan Poe.
For our first review in a new series, we turn to the new recording of Dido and Aeneas featuring Joyce DiDonato, Michael Spyres and Maxim Emelyanychev leading Il Pomo d’Oro.
A new recording by the London Symphony Orchestra is the latest landmark in a spring full of Janácek‘s Jenufa
For Niel Rishoi, a new CD of Bellini, Donizetti, and Verdi by Eleonora Burrato for Pentatone can’t help but invite unflattering comparisons
Christopher Corwin on three stylish sopranos delighting audiences live in New York and on recording in a trio of new releases.
Lise Davidsen‘s singular Senta dominates the forces of the Norwegian National Opera in a roiling new recording of Der fliegende Holländer out now on Decca Classics
Huw Montague Rendall’s new release Contemplation has been spinning in both my car and home players repeatedly for months now.
Patrick Mack looks back on “a great, nay, historic evening,” Renata Scotto‘s 1981 performance of Il trittico, now newly available on Met Opera on Demand.
Patrick Mack reviews yet another Puccini album from Jonas Kaufmann
In a splashy new recording of Norma, Marina Rebeka “is doing something very untoward, and it appears destructive to her voice.” It has Niel Rishoi worried.
As for complete recordings of Il trovatore, which was discussed at some length last week, there are at least 200 of them, both studio and live.
When my editor suggested to me a round-up of my favorite recordings of Jacques Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann I was très, très, intrigued.
As revivals of the composer’s sprawling works represent a daunting expense for many opera houses, exceptionally cast recordings of such concert performances serve as valuable documents that foster appreciation for his achievements.
There were, of course, other Chénier recordings beyond the truly great ones…
Quite simply, the singers are not around today who are steeped in the tradition of verismo, or for that matter the later part of the 19th century.
In 1982 I saw Turandot at the San Francisco Opera, the year after I became an opera fan, and it was my first live opera.
Swiss soprano Regula Mühlemann made her New York recital debut at Weill Hall on May 8.
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.
