Recent Stories
An innovative score and fluid production by Denyce Graves-Montgomery are highlights of Virginia Opera’s production of Loving v. Virginia
Seven Deadly Sins, Mahagonny Singspiel, and The Songs of Happy End live from Milan
Cameron Kelsall reports on a transcendent Jenufa from the Cleveland Orchestra
Wagner is used as incidental music or background to probably more films than any other operatic composer.
The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs at the Kennedy Center: not a poorly made opera, but so relentlessly mid.
Asmik Grigorian’s scorching turn in Il trittico in Paris has Nigel Wilkinson wondering, ‘what is it that makes Americans so weepy?’
Some of you may remember the 1987 thriller Someone to Watch Over Me.
Lydia Steier‘s production in a live video stream from Vienna
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.
Grand Tier Grab Bag
Grand Tier Grab Bag
Tra voi belle
Tra voi belle
Following the announcement that she’ll make her Met debut next season, Grand Tier Grab Bag brings Italian soprano Erika Grimaldi to your attention with a duet from Manon Lescaut.
Following the announcement that she’ll make her Met debut next season, Grand Tier Grab Bag brings Italian soprano Erika Grimaldi to your attention with a duet from Manon Lescaut.
Grand Tier Grab Bag
León in winter
León in winter
Ahead of his performance in Les pêcheurs de perles with Washington Concert Opera, Parterre Box features the unusually elegant Anthony León performing Mozart.
Ahead of his performance in Les pêcheurs de perles with Washington Concert Opera, Parterre Box features the unusually elegant Anthony León performing Mozart.
Grand Tier Grab Bag
Assai più vale il soglio
che un genitor perduto
Assai più vale il soglio
che un genitor perduto
Parterre Box highlights a busy few months of Verdi performances for Marina Rebeka and Ludovic Tézier with an exciting sample of their debuts in Nabucco.
Parterre Box highlights a busy few months of Verdi performances for Marina Rebeka and Ludovic Tézier with an exciting sample of their debuts in Nabucco.
Grand Tier Grab Bag
Women’s liberation
Women’s liberation
Parterre Box highlights two recent Verdi Requiems of interest with a pair of Libera mes from Asmik Grigorian and Anna Netrebko.
Parterre Box highlights two recent Verdi Requiems of interest with a pair of Libera mes from Asmik Grigorian and Anna Netrebko.
Grand Tier Grab Bag
Ash and you shall receive
Ash and you shall receive
Bellini and Donizetti may be top of mind these days, so Parterre Box offers two budding belcantisti, Beth Taylor and Dave Monaco, in a duet from Rossini’s La cenerentola.
Bellini and Donizetti may be top of mind these days, so Parterre Box offers two budding belcantisti, Beth Taylor and Dave Monaco, in a duet from Rossini’s La cenerentola.
Grand Tier Grab Bag
When her ship comes in
When her ship comes in
Anticipating the titanic arrival of Lise Davidsen‘s Isolde in New York in March, Parterre Box is thrilled to share a bit of her debut opposite Clay Hilley recorded in Barcelona last week.
Anticipating the titanic arrival of Lise Davidsen‘s Isolde in New York in March, Parterre Box is thrilled to share a bit of her debut opposite Clay Hilley recorded in Barcelona last week.
Interrupted Melody was the wonderful biographical film about the singer Marjorie Lawrence. I thought it was a wonderful blending of opera with a 1950s Movie.
John Adams‘s newest opera in a live broadcast from New York
Tristan transcriptions for violin, piano, and orchestra.
A live broadcast from New York
George Benjamin‘s opera live from the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome
Antony and Cleopatra is perhaps not the showcase Elizabeth DeShong deserves, so Grand Tier Grab Bag highlights the superlative mezzo in two clips
Jeanette MacDonald singing in her movies got the ball rolling for my lifelong interest in opera.
Talk of the Town
The Talk of the Town
The René Jacobs Giulio Cesare is so overrated
The René Jacobs Giulio Cesare is so overrated
George Frideric Handel (born 341 years ago on Monday) composed over 40 operas including many masterpieces, but his Giulio Cesare is the one that everyone knows best.
George Frideric Handel (born 341 years ago on Monday) composed over 40 operas including many masterpieces, but his Giulio Cesare is the one that everyone knows best.
The Talk of the Town
The 1946 La traviata is so overrated
The 1946 La traviata is so overrated
For all his undeniable precision and discipline, I still find Toscanini’s tempi rushed and unyielding and his lack of rubato a chilly turnoff.
For all his undeniable precision and discipline, I still find Toscanini’s tempi rushed and unyielding and his lack of rubato a chilly turnoff.
The Talk of the Town
The 1957 Anna Bolena is so overrated
The 1957 Anna Bolena is so overrated
While the three leads do sing the material well, there has been a glut of recordings since then which are more complete and at least as well sung.
While the three leads do sing the material well, there has been a glut of recordings since then which are more complete and at least as well sung.
The Talk of the Town
The Solti Ring Cycle is so overrated
The Solti Ring Cycle is so overrated
It was many decades ago that I first listened to the Solti Ring Cycle.
It was many decades ago that I first listened to the Solti Ring Cycle.
The Talk of the Town
The 1959 Aïda is so overrated
The 1959 Aïda is so overrated
Karajan’s 1959 Aïda was once treated like gospel, a wall of plush Vienna Philharmonic sound and star power that critics dutifully genuflected before.
Karajan’s 1959 Aïda was once treated like gospel, a wall of plush Vienna Philharmonic sound and star power that critics dutifully genuflected before.
The Talk of the Town
The 1973 La bohème is so overrated
The 1973 La bohème is so overrated
The Solti recording of Bohème is completely miscast.
The Solti recording of Bohème is completely miscast.
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.
Greta Garbo as diva Rita Cavallini with an Italo-Swedish accent.
With tight, jazzy orchestrations, a queer-coded Mephistopheles, and sassy modern recitative, Heartbeat Opera’s fast 100-minute Faust delivers Gounod in miniature, minus some of the schmaltz.
I love the use of the Liebestod at the end of Romeo + Juliet. It’s such a lush, romantic way to end the movie. The most Baz Lurhmann thing ever.
Buoyed by a cast of emerging stars, the Metropolitan Opera’s revival of Il Barbiere di Siviglia asserted a key trait of this ubiquitous buffo: it is a young person’s opera.
Impossible to pick any one film clip, but it’s hard to imagine a more evocative use of operatic music than Lars von Trier‘s Melancholia.
Opera Parallèle is revisiting Stewart Wallace and Michael Korie’s Harvey Milk during Pride Month. It’s “not a reaction,” but it couldn’t be more timely.