Strauss test
“Strauss makes me feel loved and like I am part of a world that is supernatural and extremely special,” says Elza van den Heever, the Met’s upcoming Salome, in a new feature at the Observer by parterre‘s very own Christopher Corwin.
Recent Stories
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).
Suor Angelica & Il prigioniero
Corinne Winters dons the habit in a live broadcast of a unique double bill from Rome
Fractured féerie tales
Félix Fourdrain‘s “féerie” Les Contes de Perrault by the Frivolités Parisiennes is as fun for adults as it is for children
A favorite Donizetti performance from Cornelia
Donizetti’s never been a desert island composer of mine, but he comes close when I hear Edita Gruberova in her prime.
By Cornelia
75 comments
Brain Wurm
By the time the curtain rose on Verdi’s Luisa Miller last Sunday in Washington Concert Opera’s final show of the season, the originally announced line-up was about as accurate as a federal agency org chart from February.
A favorite Donizetti performance from Ali Kashani
Assuming someone else will pick Leyla Gencer‘s legendary “Vil bastarda”, I’ll go with another clip featuring robust audience participation.
By Ali Kashani
80 comments
A favorite Donizetti performance from grimoaldo2
The Greatest Thing Ever (AKA Lisette Oropesa) in a stunning mad scene from Lucia di Lammermoor with the excellent Artur Rucinski and Roberto Tagliavini in an extremely effective production by David Alden at the Teatro Real in Madrid.
By grimoaldo2
105 comments
A favorite Donizetti performance from Angela Meade
For me, Donizetti’s operas are all about the mad scenes.
By Angela Meade
84 comments
L’assedio di Corinto
A broadcast from 1975 celebrates 50 years since the Met debut of Beverly Sills
Arabella
A live broadcast of a most Viennese opera from Vienna itself
A favorite Donizetti performance from Belle Raggio
Late Callas singing Maria from “Figlia del Reggimento” a role she wisely never attempted on stage.
By Belle Raggio
55 comments
Dies magna et amara valde
parterre box offers a Good Friday pick-me-up: elusive chanteuse Juliana Grigoryan in perhaps her most canceled role, the soprano soloist in Verdi’s Requiem
C’est une vraie voix
Don Carlos returns to the Opéra National de Paris and it’s an unusually happy occasion
A favorite Donizetti performance from Peter Russell
Who knew that rehearing a performance you believed had become nothing more than a cherished memory would have such healing properties during a time of bereavement?
By Peter Russell
43 comments
Lucia di Lammermoor
Jessica Pratt sings the title role in a live broadcast from Trieste
Bachelor party
It may be blasphemy to admit—particularly this month—but usually I can either take or leave Donizetti’s serious operas. However, I love the composer in comic mode, so Chris’s Cache runs with that sentiment in offering three recordings of Don Pasquale.
A favorite Donizetti performance from rapt
The ham in this pandemic-era let’s-put-on-a-show Elisir duet (from the Met at Home broadcast) may make the performance more sooey than sui generis. But I find it irresistible.
By rapt
25 comments
Humdrum existence
Missy Mazzoli has established herself as one of contemporary opera’s most skilled and subtle architects of emotional response, and her latest, The Listeners—now at the Lyric Opera of Chicago—is no exception.
A favorite Donizetti performance from Armerjacquino
Well, it’s a clip from Mary Zimmermann‘s production of Lucia di Lammermoor… wait, wait, come back!
By Armerjacquino
91 comments
Happiness indeed
The nail-biting adventures of Voltaire’s titular hero Candide are hardly more circuitous than those faced by Leonard Bernstein’s 1956 Broadway musical adaptation.
Peter Seiffert 1954-2025
The German Heldentenor died yesterday at his home in Austria.