San Francisco Opera 2025-26
The San Francisco Opera announces its 2025-26 season.
Recent Stories
Paul Plishka 1941-2025
The American bass, a fixture of the Metropolitan Opera between 1967 and 2018, was 83.
She has come, she has come
I’ve been waiting (nearly) 20 years for another encounter with Samuel Barber and Gian Carlo Menotti’s Vanessa.
The Met should revive Der Freischütz
Der Freischütz has not been seen at the Met since 1972!
By Bertrand Simon
150 comments
Aged in oak
When the birthdays start to pile up in the double digits in big round numbers, you start to examine your past and review what you have done with your life.
The Met should revive Hérodiade
Every mediocre performance of Trovatore (and don’t we know about those?) could instead be a very good performance of Massenet‘s Hérodiade.
By Harry Rose
192 comments
The Met should revive Les vêpres siciliennes
Verdi’s Les vêpres siciliennes — not I vespri siciliani, but the French original.
By Roger Pines
161 comments
Die tote Stadt
Korngold‘s opera in a live broadcast from Boston
Die Zauberflöte
A live broadcast from the Vienna Staatsoper conducted by Franz Welser-Möst.
La traviata
Renée Fleming leads a performance recorded in New York in 2007
Maria Egiziaca
The forces of the Teatro La Fenice in a performance of Respighi‘s opera recorded last spring at Venice’s Teatro Malibran
The Met should revive Król Roger
Peter—may I call you Peter? It has come to our attention that you are seeking operas with “rich, melodic scores.”
By Emma Hoffman
148 comments
Playing midwives to an egg
Nigel Wilkinson reports on Teodor Curentzis and Peter Sellars‘s new production of Rameau‘s Castor et Pollux in Paris.
A favorite Mozart performance from Last Castrato
This is an astonishing recording by one of the greatest singers of the 19th century.
By Last Castrato
141 comments
What’s old is new again
An 1887 French grand opera by a Black American composer receives its world premiere with Opera Lafayette and OperaCréole next week and is raising questions about the potential of “restorative justice” in the operatic canon.
A favorite Mozart performance from grimoaldo2
The Greatest Thing Ever (AKA Lisette Oropesa) in a stunning performance of “Martern aller Arten”
By grimoaldo2
93 comments
Ode to Ode to Joy
Are Beethoven’s symphonies overplayed? Yes, but for a reason. While this justification may sound cliché, Beethoven’s humanist universalism is a sentiment that feels urgent in an era of widespread polarization and pessimism.
Life is like a box of Mozartkugeln
Following last week’s multiple versions of three prime concert arias, Chris’s Cache concludes its Mozart month by offering more of those special vocal works, this time twenty-five arias for mezzo, tenor or bass, as well as more for soprano.
A favorite Mozart performance from spiderman
Never heard more beautiful runs than by Della Casa.
By spiderman
47 comments
On Site unseen
A message from CEO and General Director Piper Gunnarson and Board President Corey Kinger announces the closure of the innovative New York-based On Site Opera
Les Arts Florissants
William Christie curates an evening of French Baroque music in a live broadcast from Carnegie Hall.
Ariadne auf Naxos
Lise Davidsen and Michael Spyres, now in a live video broadcast from Vienna.
Meninas and meninos
Despite the practically unmitigated fiasco of the last Verdi concert opera performance seen in Boston, I approached Sunday’s Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras performance of Don Carlo at Harvard’s Sanders Theatre with much more optimism.
A favorite Mozart performance from Trevor
Idomeneo from the 2022 Aix festival. A wacky production, with those moving towers, but the cast is outstanding: Michael Spyres (Idomeneo), Anna Bonitatibus (Idamante), Sabine Devieilhe (Ilia), Nicole Chevalier (Elettra); Raphaël Pichon, Conductor.
By Trevor
86 comments