Natural fools
Perhaps the conversation about Rigoletto and disability isn’t limited to physical appearance. What if we broaden the scope of what disability in this opera might look like?
Recent Stories
This summer I’m reading The Operetta Empire: Music Theater in Early 20th C. Vienna
Fascinating account of the role of musical theater in an uneasy context of art emerging from the conflict and resolutions of high culture and popular sentimentality in an era where elites were challenged by political instability.
By Sarah Salter
69 comments
The Queen of Spades
The final Saturday Matinee Broadcast of the 2024-25 season, live from New York
This summer I’m reading Scènes de la vie de Bohème
Man, I tried so hard to get this commissioned as a radio drama, because I want everyone to know what a ride this book is.
By Armerjacquino
108 comments
Masc et femme fatale
parterre box celebrates the beginning of Pride Month with a throwback to one of the queerer events in recent operatic memory: a bit of Carmen starring Jamie Barton and Stephanie Blythe!
Georges has Georges
A double bill of rare Bizet works in Paris is not something any of us needs to do more than once
Höchste Lust!
Yannick Nézet-Séguin leads the Philadelphia Orchestra, Stuart Skelton, and Nina Stemme in a Tristan und Isolde for the ages
This summer I’m reading How Sondheim Can Change Your Life
Not about opera per se, Sweeney Todd notwithstanding, but I’m looking forward to reading the poignant and touching ode to Sondheim’s oeuvre by Richard Schoch.
By Leyla Gender-Bender
17 comments
HMS Indomitable
For Niel Rishoi, a new CD of Bellini, Donizetti, and Verdi by Eleonora Burrato for Pentatone can’t help but invite unflattering comparisons
This summer I’m reading The Uncle from Rome
Joseph Caldwell produced this charming tale from a year spent in Italy on the Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
By John Yohalem
22 comments
San Francisco Opera’s Pride Concert promises a dose of cultural X Change
If you thought that opera was the final bastion against technicolor illumination and drag, first of all Why? Second of all San Francisco Opera begs to differ, and they’re sending in the heavy artillery for Pride Weekend on June 27th. Yes, the War Memorial Opera House will be aglow. Tal Rosner’s projections and Justin A. […]
Strauss is bustin’ out all over
This week, Chris’s Cache features five singers in Orchesterlieder by Richard Strauss
This summer I’m reading poetry by Muriel Rukeyser
I think most of us have come around to recognizing John Adams‘s Doctor Atomic the masterpiece that it is.
By Harry Rose
33 comments
Antony and Cleopatra
The final live weeknight broadcast of the 2024-25 season from New York
Venetian blinding
West Bay Opera’s Otello punches well above its weight
This summer I’m reading Dom Carlos
A bleak and somber version of the familiar story by Saint-Réal, mixing facts with fiction, making it even more tragical than the Verdi opera.
By Remko Jas
33 comments
Bye bye baby
Following last week’s performances in Cleveland, Ronnie Banerjee compares six different versions of the Kostelnicka’s monologue from Leos Janácek’s Jenufa for “Perspectives on an Aria”
This summer I’m reading The White Hotel
Because D.M. Thomas‘s book was a famous book back in its day — I read it in the mid-eighties, yet have forgotten 90% of what it’s all about.
By Camille
95 comments
This summer I’m reading Fifty Five Years in Five Acts
Astrid Varnay‘s autobiography. Entertaining, cogent. Shows wit and character. Much more than “I sang, I got applause, and everyone loved me.”
By Scott Grunow
37 comments
Did somebody say something?
Act now to join the starry ranks of The Talk of the Town contributors for a new quarter of à propos chitter chatter!
Werther
Benjamin Bernheim sings the title role opposite Marina Viotti in a performance from Paris recorded last month
Armerjacquino says you must watch The White Lotus
I’m bending the rules a little here, and not only substituting TV for film, but turning the category on its head by doing Movies At The Opera rather than the other way round.
By Armerjacquino
38 comments