Don’t swipe, dear reader… I know you just heard from me last week, but summer is upon us and I fear you’ll all soon be gathered with your families and frenemies at islands both Fire and kitchen. Spending the summer holiday gettin’ all hot dogged leaves one with very little appetite for opera.

But alas see we must appease the advertising gods.

Come September you’ll also be enduring our relentless mid-roll YouTube ads of operatic medleys featuring Alyssa Edwards hitting tongue pops in the key of Snapple™ lid.

“Immenso Pt*!ah…”

or whatever the case may be.

Liliya Namisnyk

Ahead of her return to the Met, soprano Corinne Winters chats with Kevin Ng about her repertoire, overcoming biases about her voice type, and how she plans to play “energetic, young women” as long as she can. Read that »

Win Free Tickets to
Evgeny Kissin and Friends:
A Tribute to Shostakovich
at Carnegie Hall

Oooh, this Saturday legendary pianist Evgeny Kissin leads an all-star lineup in his third and final Shostakovich program of the month—this time featuring some delicious vocal rarities.

Soprano Susanna Phillips, mezzo Sasha Cooke, tenor John Matthew Myers, and bass Alexander Roslavets tackle two song cycles.

In one of them, the character likens his love to a cannonball explosion in which he loses an arm… to which my 19-year-old self very much relates.

For benefactrixes of such art, tickets start at $58.50.

However, for those suffering under certain recent persecutions and privations, Parterre Box is giving away two pairs of tickets!

Three ages of woman Asmik Grigorian’s scorching turn in Il trittico in Paris has Nigel Wilkinson wondering, ‘what is it that makes Americans so weepy?’	Guergana Damianova
The revolution will be digitized The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs at the Kennedy Center: not a poorly made opera, but so relentlessly mid.	Scott Suchman
Satan keeps the beat With tight, jazzy orchestrations, a queer-coded Mephistopheles, and sassy modern recitative, Heartbeat Opera’s fast 100-minute Faust delivered Gounod in miniature, minus some of the schmaltz.	Russ Rowland

Our new regular feature The Talk of the Town is a big hit. Each day Parterre’s most erudite readers, eloquent writers, and exuberant ramblers gather to discuss the topic of the month… or (more frequently) ignore it altogether and drift into stochastic fugues of their own.

Now the Parterre Box team is inviting contributions for a new quarter of operatic potpourri. We’d love to hear from you on:

• July 2025: Change my mind about…
  What’s your most unpopular opera opinion? Share a singer, a composer, a director, an opera, etc. that leaves you cold and see if our commenters can change your mind.
• August 2025: Favorite Wagner Performance
  Bayreuth will be in full swing, and we want you to share a favorite Wagner performance to celebrate.
• September 2025: What I’m looking forward to next season
  With the new season about to get underway, we’ll want to know what opera, production, role debut, etc. you are most excited for in the 2025-2026 season.

Do you have questions, tips, suggestions, gripes, or story ideas?
Email us if you must: [email protected]

Ciao for now!
Nick Scholl
Publisher, parterre box