A matinée, a Pinto play
Perhaps a piece of Mahler’s? For Wagner Month, Chris’s Cache offers the unexpected collaboration Die drei Pintos, started by Wagner-predecessor Carl Maria von Weber and completed by one of Wagner’s followers, Gustav Mahler
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¡Sí, se puede!
The world premiere of Dolores and Charpentier‘s David and Jonathan bring the heat to West Edge Opera’s 2025 Festival.
Cross my heart and hope to die
Wolf Trap Opera’s stirring production of Dialogues des Carmélites was a welcome respite from a brutally hot and humid DC summer.
L’italiana in Algeri
Daniela Barcellona leads a live broadcast from the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro
A favorite Wagner performance from fletcher
Júlia Várady‘s smoldering, almost feral Sieglinde from the Sawallisch/Lehnhoff Ring, remains my favorite.
By fletcher
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Rigoletto
A performance recorded last month at The Santa Fe Opera starring Michael Chioldi
Shadows of a doubt
R.B. Schlather‘s shadowy production with Heartbeat Opera at the Williamstown Theatre Festival proves that Vanessa might be coming into its own at last
Soirées musicales & La cambiale di matrimonio
A live broadcast from the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro
A favorite Wagner performance from Rowna Sutin
This is one of my favorite operas, and visually and story telling-wise, you can’t beat this production.
By Rowna Sutin
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Zelmira
A live broadcast of the opening night of the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro with Anastasia Bartoli and Lawrence Brownlee
With so little to be sure of
One final appeal for you to share what most titillates you in the upcoming season for September’s The Talk of the Town
Agrippina
A performance recorded last month at the Festival International d’Opéra Baroque & Romantique de Beaune featuring Les Épopées
A favorite Wagner performance from Yuval Sharon
This performance represents a perfect alignment of piece, performer, director, and conductor – the epitome of Gesamtkunstwerk.
By Yuval Sharon
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Gonna build a heaven from a little hell
Tobias Kratzer‘s Das Rheingold in Munich kicks off a Ring for the post-secular age
Back to the gypsy that I was
In the midst of an eventful summer for the Arena di Verona, one important happening has flown under the radar: the return of Anita Rachvelishvili to her signature role of Carmen, of which Parterre Box features a sample of today
This is what trauma looks like
Valentin Schwarz‘s and Simone Young‘s Ring, in its final outing at Bayreuth, is dramaturgically messy and musically excellent.
A favorite Wagner performance from Scott Grunow
Rita Gorr as Ortrud, Bayreuth, 1959, Cluytens.
By Scott Grunow
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Pompeo and circumstance
Chris’s Cache previews the upcoming Bayreuth Baroque Festival with a rare recording of Cavalli’s Pompeo Magno
Bluebeard’s Castle
Iván Fischer leads an all-Hungarian team in a broadcast from the Proms
A favorite Wagner performance from Krunoslav
The superb 1958 Bayreuth Lohengrin, under the wonderful Cluytens.
By Krunoslav
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Land where the lemon trees bloom
The repertory company of Munich’s Gärtnerplatztheater brings sparkle to a goofy, summery L’elisir d’amore
The Aix factor
This summer’s festival, taking place amid record high temperatures and in the wake of its artistic director, Pierre Audi, featured a disquietingly zeigeisty focus on sexual violence.
A favorite Wagner performance from Carmen Paddock
Recency bias is in full swing here, but Glyndebourne’s first ever staging of Parsifal – and my first Parsifal – takes top prize for me.
By Carmen Paddock
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Space oddity
In Lohengrin, populism comes to an apocalyptic end on the Bavarian stage