His mouth is always scandalous His mouth is always scandalous

A Pasolini-inspired Tosca at La Monnaie does not quite find the pleasure in the pain.

Three more times! Three more times!

The long evening didn’t achieve the degree of celebration it should have.

Minnie happy returns Minnie happy returns

Puccini’s Girl closes out the 20th century and gallops into the 21st.

The beautiful rooms are empty The beautiful rooms are empty

It appears that Mariame Clément’s conception of Don Pasquale is that the opera should be retitled Malatesta.

Puccini three ways Puccini three ways

Puccini’s evening of one-act operas Il Trittico seems to be riding a wave of popularity over the last few years, with a new production at the Met and several high-profile productions in America and Europe.

Expect opera, pay less Expect opera, pay less

You may remember, gentle readers, that last year about this time Peter Gelb decided to enter into an unholy alliance with Target to benefit their mountainous number of opera loving customers by pre-releasing two Met performances exclusively in their fine emporiums.

The boys in the back room

“The American Way of Life, lightly satirized, lies at the heart of our production: it is an adventure that takes place somewhere between Wall Street and Hollywood.” Nikolaus Lehnhoff, as can be surmised from these liner notes, makes full use of stereotypically “American” imagery throughout his production of Puccini’s La fanciulla del West:  Wall Street…

Golden girl

Although she has made headlines on this side of the Atlantic largely because of her recent dismissal by Franco Zeffirelli from a Roman production of La traviata on the grounds of “physical inadequacy,”  Daniela Dessì is a topflight star in Europe. In her native Italy she is arguably the most popular soprano currently active. Over…