Calling from 2066, Brendan Latimer argues that the best way to save opera might be to just blow up the standard repertoire altogether.
At Wolf Trap Opera, a season-closing Tosca is weighed down by an incoherent setting during Italy’s Anni di piombo.
Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen shows that he’s at the top of a crowded pack of countertenors in two recent New York performances with Philharmonia Baroque.
Zémire et Azor, André-Ernest-Modest Grétry‘s riff on “Beauty and the Beast”, gets a rare outing in the Berkshires.
Dmitri Tcherniakov‘s production of Der Freischütz in Munich may fire a few blanks, but the musicians are all on target.
Rising stars Chelsea Lehnea and Ricardo José Rivera are the protagonists of this week’s Grand Tier Grab Bag.
The bonkers, bewildering Die ägyptische Helena begets a suitably lush musical and creative treatment at Bard SummerScape.
The Bayerische Staatsoper’s summer festival wound down with Lotte de Beer’s darkly effective production of Gounod ’sFaust.
Zubin Mehta was a major part of musical life when I moved to Southern California in 1969, having started his tenure as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Yuval Sharon‘s production of The Excursions of Mr. Brouček shoots for the moon — and lands somewhat limply on Lake Constance.
Wolf Trap Opera presented a lovely Eugene Onegin with particularly noteworthy performances by Magdalena Kuźma and Daniel O’Hearn.
Les Arts Florissants (lightly) stages two Charpentier rarities as a summer wedding gone wrong.
While it may not be top-tier Rossini, Teatro Nuovo’s mounting of Il turco in Italia is still good summer fun.
Teatro Nuovo pays tribute to a historic New York production of Don Giovanni with a talented ensemble.
Whether an opera by Puccini, Verdi, Wagner, Strauss, or Berg, Dimitri Mitropoulos brought to the podium a total understanding and love for each score he touched.
Festival d’Aix-en-Provence confronts the living and the dead — and its own future — through audacious productions and an intimate world premiere.
I first experienced the magic of Seiji Ozawa in 1972 when I was 12 years old.
Fausto Cleva, in this glorious Fanciulla from the old Met, demonstrates all the great skills of opera conducting
I think Patanè did far more than just hold it together: he did full honor to Verdi.
Ahead of his new production of Die Frau ohne Schatten, Barrie Kosky chats with Kevin Ng in Aix about pretty much everything — except the details of his new Frau.
Greek National Opera’s Medea in the ancient theater at Epidaurus is an intermittently rewarding exercise in nostalgia.
John Danaher pays an operatic tribute to the writings of James McCourt, an author who captured the spirit of opera as queer and dangerous like no other.
Yannick Nézet-Séguin, leading the Met Orchestra, and Joyce DiDonato continue their exploration of Mahler at Carnegie Hall.
Subtlety is for cowards, say the blazing Anita Cerquetti and the blaring Ebe Stignani.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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