Keeper of the flame
Elina Garanca’s glorious Marguerite transformed La Damnation de Faust into the Met’s first essential must-see of the year.
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Let’s begin
On this day in 1961 the historic Metropolitan Opera debuts of Leontyne Price and Franco Corelli in Verdi’s Il trovatore.
Not the fragile child-princess
On this day in 1958 soprano Inge Borkh made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Salome.
Legendary
A scene from Les Contes d’Hoffmann with Michael Fabiano, which may or may not be seen soon at L’Opéra national de Paris.
Mithridates is dead
Trove Thursday marks Mozart’s 264th birthday on Sunday with the 14-year-old’s remarkable opera seria Mitridate, Re di Ponto .
Triple threat
Happy 87th birthday to singer / dancer / actress Chita Rivera.
Corolle
Born on this day in 1905 couturier Christian Dior.
I’ll take the fall
The days are getting shorter, but you can keep the prattle going this fall’s Talk of the Town! You will, you can, you must join in the discussion about: Great mezzo soprano performances (October),
Gained in translation (November), Teleport me back to… (December).
All hearts are broken
On this day in 1967 Colin Davis made his Metropolitan Opera debut conducting Peter Grimes with Jon Vickers, Lucine Amara and Geraint Evans in the cast.
Pandelirium
We live in a time of open-season for jokes on ancient myths, mixing and matching, sometimes with great success, as The Book of Mormon and Hadestown demonstrate.
Win a Free Ticket to Opening Night at the Met!
Quinn Kelsey and Lise Davidsen star in the Met's new Macbeth. We're giving away one ticket, so screw your courage to the sticking place and enter now!
Body and soul
Ultimately, the unrelenting grimness of the subject matter allied to the sameness of the vocal writing made for a wearying evening.
The ancient mourner
Cion: Requiem of Ravel’s Bolero is a dance-music-theater piece that Prototype Festival presented at the Joyce Theater through Saturday night.
Bitter end
Trove Thursday offers a rare third retelling of the saga of the ill-fated courtesan: Auber’s Manon Lescaut starring Mariella Devia.
Rice and shine
Happy 86th birthday mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne.
Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy and Gabrielle
I watched Greta Gerwig’s heartbreaking, gorgeous, joy-filled explosion of an adaptation of Little Women in about the best way one can, sniffling in the dark with my best friend, the closest person I have to a sister.
A radical participatory platform
The opera’s radical vision lay in its enormous scale, which encompassed a hundred-strong community chorus taken from the ranks of the Brooklyn Youth Chorus and Master Voices.
Seductively compelling
Rosa Feola immediately established with her first group that she’s a serious artist who brought to the concert format both a warmly appealing coppery soprano as well as detailed and savvy dramatic instincts.
Refraction
I’m only now coming up for air after a night spent wading in the deep, cool, refractory waters of Magdalene, a work of immense, mythic joy and pain wrapped in the details of the ordinary.
Litter box office poison
Upon its commercial release three weeks ago, Tom Hooper’s film adaptation of Cats garnered instant, near-universal scorn from audiences and critics alike.
Flawless!
At the Metropolitan Opera on Friday night, an otherwise undistinguished Traviata was salvaged by an astonishing performance from Aleksandra Kurzak, whose Violetta was an incontrovertible triumph.
The moon and I
Composer Garrett Fisher and librettist Ellen McLaughlin’s Blood Moon wears its themes on its sleeve to great success in this spellbinding new opera.
The man that got away
On this day in 1912 Pietro Mascagni‘s Lodoletta had its United States premiere at the Metropolitan with Geraldine Farrar and Enrico Caruso in the leads.
