Recent Stories
With Siegfried, the directorial vision of the Paris Opera‘s Ring cycle finally takes root.
This is the classic Onegin and there’s much to love, especially from Khaikin‘s sensitive conducting and Lemeshev‘s ideal Lensky.
An opera about the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics was never going to be an easy task.
Ponchielli goes east with mixed results in I Lituani.
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.
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
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.
Grand Tier Grab Bag
Erste Brautnacht
Erste Brautnacht
Nearly three years after the premiere of François Girard’s Lohengrin at the Met, Parterre Box looks back at the production with a duet from Piotr Beczala and Elena Stikhina.
Nearly three years after the premiere of François Girard’s Lohengrin at the Met, Parterre Box looks back at the production with a duet from Piotr Beczala and Elena Stikhina.
Old pros Gregory Kunde and Pier Luigi Pizzi anchor a new staging of Stiffelio co-produced by three theaters in Emilia-Romagna.
Ahead of a special boozy, bawdy Valentine’s Day concert, artistic director of Opera Lafayette Patrick Quigley speaks with soprano Maya Kherani about her journey from MIT to rising American Baroque star.
Salome sweeps in like a storm at the Lyric Opera of Chicago.
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.
Yuja Wang slayed in this performance of Prokofiev‘s 2nd piano concerto with the Boston Symphony.
Franz Welser-Möst leads a rigorous, if emotionally staid, performance of Verdi‘s Requiem at Carnegie Hall.
“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.
Talk of the Town
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.
The Talk of the Town
The 2023 Turandot is so overrated
The 2023 Turandot is so overrated
The recent highly hyped studio recording of Puccini’s Turandot left me greatly disappointed.
The recent highly hyped studio recording of Puccini’s Turandot left me greatly disappointed.
A Strauss rarity receives a ravishing concert performance at Seattle Opera.
Christina Nilsson‘s successful Met debut as Aïda was for me one of the shining highlights of the 2025 season.
Lise Davidsen‘s first Isolde is only one of the highlights of Tristan und Isolde at the Liceu in Barcelona.
Garsington’s new production of The Queen of Spades, directed by Jack Furness, had better become a house staple.
A classic German fairytale gets a modern update at the Staatsoper Berlin.