Both performances moved me profoundly and served as a form of catharsis, ending a challenging 2025 with a glimmer of hope for the future

Easily the Met’s new Sonnambula, where cast and production team delivered a gorgeously sung and well thought out concept for a libretto often derided for its simplicity.

Yuja Wang slayed in this performance of Prokofiev‘s 2nd piano concerto with the Boston Symphony.

“Let me look around once more. Who knows when I shall see this house again?”

Many productions have emphasized Salome’s youth, but few have gone as far as this spectacular and visceral production at the Komische Oper by Evgeny Titov.

Christina Nilsson‘s successful Met debut as Aïda was for me one of the shining highlights of the 2025 season.

Garsington’s new production of The Queen of Spades, directed by Jack Furness, had better become a house staple.

I had the pleasure of attending Manon starring Lisette Oropesa and Benjamin Bernheim at Opernhaus Zürich this past October.

Part of the annual Festival Illica honoring the city’s native son Luigi Illica, the performance offered a precious opportunity to hear a rare score by an even rarer composer in a gorgeous medieval piazza.

“When there’s so much to get right, unsurprisingly a lot can and, as we all know, does go wrong.”

I can’t say 2025 was my best operagoing year; apart from a superb Fille du régiment, most of my good nights at the opera were decidedly mixed affairs.

What do you get when you blend innovative 17th century composition, 1970s family drama, and one of the most sordid tales of the New Testament?

Tobias Kratzer‘s production of Das Rheingold at the Bayerische Staatsoper was a resounding success.

Looking back, this Stiffelio in Piacenza is the one I cherish the most.

I wasn’t alive during the golden age of Verdi baritones like MacNeil, Warren, or Gobbi, but hearing Amartuvshin Enkhbat live in an opera house must be the next best thing.

I’m going with four outstanding, deeply personal NYC recitals

I had the pleasure of going with some members of the Pittsburgh Opera to the PROTOTYPE Festival in New York at the start of the year- almost unfortunate it was so early on in 2025 because it set my expectations for the year so high!

It’s a dazzling, shocking, and entertaining 100 minutes – one of the best new operas I’ve seen.

I still don’t think Sunset Boulevard is a top-tier musical but it was by far the most memorable vocal performance I saw in 2025.

Elina Garanča scaled the vocal and dramatic summits of the Judgement Duet and Scene in the May series of Aïda.

A staged Freischütz is rare enough in itself to be the highlight of any opera season, but it was in Christoph Marthaler‘s Antwerp production that I connected with the characters and felt the story for the first time.

Houston Grand Opera’s 2025 Breaking the Waves was absolutely my highlight of the year!

In the spring, The English Concert completed a three-city tour performing a concert version of Handel’s Giulio Cesare in Egitto.