Americana, reconsidered
Davóne Tines leads a thought-provoking program in San Francisco reconsidering patriotism, dissent, and spirituality as the United States faces down its quarter millennium crisis.
Recent Stories
Life of the Mardi
La Monnaie’s flamboyantly busy new production of Benvenuto Cellini reads more burlesque than Berlioz.
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).
Gender? I hardly know her!
Christof Loy’s production of Pablo Luna’s gender-bending Orientalist farce Benamor proves to be irresistible.
Living the part
Diana Soviero chats with Roger Pines about six decades of performing, four decades of teaching, and how she’s handing the tradition off to the next generation.
Beam me up, Selim
Die Entführung aus dem Serail boldly goes where no opera has gone before at Pacific Opera Project.
Uncovered gems
Despite some complications, the Deutsche Oper exhumes buried treasure in Franz Schreker’s Der Schatzgräber.
The 1973 La bohème is so overrated
The Solti recording of Bohème is completely miscast.
By Mr. Fabulous
222 comments
Broadcast
Asmik Grigorian in Recital / Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia
Asmik Grigorian performs an eclectic program live from Rome with Lukas Geniušas
Streamed February 11, 2026 at 2:30 PM
19 comments
Extravaganza of ideas
Iván Fischer‘s Mahler 3 with the Budapest Festival Orchestra at Carnegie Hall is memorable but crude, sometimes exhilarating and often tedious.
No shrinking Violanta
A chic production of Violanta at the Deutshce Oper Berlin continues the Korngold craze on the other side of the Atlantic.
The crowd-pleaser comes around
Juan Diego Flórez‘s charm and artistic sensibility remain as vibrant as ever, as seen at a recent Carnegie Hall recital.
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.
One is silver, the other is Golda
In an all-Mozart program with the San Francisco Symphony, Golda Schultz shows that her soubrette days are behind her.
The 2023 Turandot is so overrated
The recent highly hyped studio recording of Puccini’s Turandot left me greatly disappointed.
By Moe Rear
153 comments
Broadcast
Faust / Bayerische Staatsoper
Nathalie Stutzmann conducts Jonathan Tetelman, Olga Kulchynska, and Kyle Ketelsen in a live broadcast from Munich.
Streamed February 8, 2026 at 12:00 PM
7 comments
The arc of life
The dazzling and deeply moving Complications in Sue bodes well for Anthony Roth Costanzo‘s stewardship of Opera Philadelphia.
Broadcast
Werther / Metropolitan Opera
A performance from 1979 starring Alfredo Kraus and Régine Crespin, chosen by Lawrence Brownlee
Streamed February 7, 2026 at 1:00 PM
54 comments
Broadcast
Ariodante / Royal Ballet and Opera
Jacqueline Stucker, Emily D'Angelo, and Christophe Dumaux star in a performance recorded in December in London
Streamed February 7, 2026 at 1:00 PM
Comment
I want you to enter the holy of holies
Das Wunder der Heliane fuses sex with the sacred at a simmering performance at the Opéra National du Rhin.
The 1965 Les contes d’Hoffmann is so overrated
All in all, an ill-advised venture.
By La Grunowa
36 comments
Broadcast
La traviata / Wiener Staatsoper
Xabier Anduaga, Kristina Mkhitaryan, and Artur Rucinski lead a live video broadcast from Vienna
Streamed February 6, 2026 at 1:00 PM
2 comments
Carnegie Hall 2026–27 season: the vocal highlights
Heavy-hitters: the first complete Ring in its history, Tosca with Marina Rebeka, Jonas Kaufmann, and Ludovic Tézier; plus recitals from Aigul Akhmetshina, Nadine Sierra, Jeanine De Bique, Michael Spyres, and more
“I don’t play a wilting flower very well”
Jennifer Holloway, star of Salome at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, talks with Christina Colanduoni about re-launching her career as a soprano and how her Salome is “just trying not to disappear under everybody else’s rule.”