An exciting cast digs their claws into a heady production of La Calisto at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées.
A stylish and funny Così fan tutte at LA Opera is a pretty glam affair, according to Patrick Mack.
A perfect meeting of voice with composer occurred when Arleen Auger took part in the rediscovery of early works by Mozart.
Chris’s Cache wraps up November with Régine Crespin’s Chicago Leonore; two rare Met Fidelios headed by Christa Ludwig and Hildegard Behrens; and a concert performance with Birgit Nilsson led by Leonard Bernstein, plus a final twist: excerpts of Carol Vaness in Leonore.
Wrapping up Diva November, Chris’s Cache offers two sacred works that couldn’t be more unalike.
The worst criticism perhaps was the gleeful Schadenfreude noting Edita’s voice wasn’t as under her command as it used to be.
Trove Thursday’s belated contribution to last weekend’s Platinum Jubilee is a broadcast from Aldeburgh of Benjamin Britten’s Gloriana with Christine Brewer and Tom Randle as Elizabeth and Essex, an opera which premiered 69 years ago yesterday.
The great Spanish mezzo soprano Teresa Berganza died on May 13 at the age of 89, so Trove Thursday salutes one of its favorites with a pair of dazzling rare live Mozart performances.
You’d think after nearly 40 years of opera going I’d have seen almost everything.. .twice. Yet I found myself at LA Opera Tuesday night for a special presentation of George Frideric Handel’s Alcina which was my first live experience with one of his operas.
Trove Thursday remembers Edita Gruberová with live recordings of two of the three operas I heard her perform at the Met: a 1985 Munich La Traviata with Neil Shicoff and Wolfgang Brendel conducted by Carlos Kleiber and an I Puritani from Vienna 1994 featuring two other artists who recently left us too soon: Marcello Giordani and Dmitri Hvorostovsky.
Trove Thursday celebrates Christa Ludwig with live excerpts from 1955 through 1982.
“Trove Thursday” features its two favorite baritones in a pair of comforting settings of the Requiem.
“Trove Thursday” turns its Rossini-150 series to one of the composer’s least known but tastiest comic gems La Pietra del Paragone with Julia Hamari, Justino Diaz, Alessandro Corbelli, Claudio Desderi and Paolo Barbacini conducted by Roberto Abbado.
“Trove Thursday” offers Così fan tutte with Pilar Lorengar, Josephine Veasey, Lucia Popp, Luigi Alva and Kieth Engen with Georg Solti conducting.
Arabella with Wolfgang Sawallisch conducting a prime-time 1980s Munich cast.
“Trove Thursday” pays tribute to the great German bass Kurt Moll
This week Trove Thursday endeavors to broaden his exposure with a bubbly performance of Il Marito Disperato starring Sylvia Geszty.
To mark Mozart’s 260th birthday tomorrow, “Trove Thursday” offers his infrequently performed bucolic opera Il Re Pastore with the sublime Arleen Augér as its heroine and Edith Mathis as her shepherd-lover.
Puccini’s Madama Butterfly with an unexpected heroine: the electrifying Julia Varady, seduced and abandoned by the suavely ardent Giacomo Aragall.
Sunday afternoon’s intermittently involving concert performance of Handel’s Alcina at Carnegie Hall starred an unusually intense Joyce DiDonato as a powerful sorceress blinded by her romantic delusions.
With much laying-on of fanfares and gift boxes our friends at Decca Classics have unleashed Luciano Pavarotti Edition 1: The First Decade on a weary and satiated public.
It’s hard to think of a rare work by a great composer more tailor-made for a twenty-first century reexamination than Mozart’s Il Sogno di Scipione.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
Sign up for our free Newsletter.
Support Parterre Box
Donate to keep opera's liveliest publication free and independent. No paywalls, no institutional backing, no bootlicking.
Get our free newsletter
Opera's top reads delivered to your email weekly…ish.
Join over 100k readers.
The best opera magazine on the web.
Reviews, breaking news, critical essays, and brainrot commentary on opera from those demented enough to love it.
Essentials
Copyright © 2026 Parterre Box.
All rights reserved.
Registration or use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms & Conditions and our Privacy Policy.
Sign up for Parterre’s free newsletter.
Exclusive opera reviews, commentary, and top reads
delivered to your email weekly…ish.