A smoking Traviata
Restrictions encourage creative staging, for which the Berkshire Opera Festival is renowned.
East Coast
Peter’s arabian nights
The moral stench seeps through Peter Gelb‘s decision to partner with the Saudi government, but what new sources of funding for the Met don’t have red flags?
My soul is eager for this kind of pain
Ross Wassermann tracks the development of “Che farò senza Euridice?” — and “J’ai perdu mon Eurydice” — for this month’s Perspectives on an Aria
A favorite Wagner performance from Le Petit Yniold
Nowhere are the contradictions between Wagner’s small-mindedness, his meanness of spirit, and his human insight on clearer display than in Hans Sachs monologue Wahn, Wahn überall Wahn in the third Act of Mesitersinger.
By Le Petit Yniold
45 comments
Da tempeste
My recollections of Hurricane Katrina, which made landfall in Louisiana twenty years ago today, come with a pair of odd bookends: it starts with Verdi’s Don Carlo and ends with Puccini’s Il trittico.
Drink me
Chris’s Cache offers Nadine Sierra and Xabier Anduaga, the stars of the upcoming production of La sonnambula, in a performance of another favorite bel canto opera
A favorite Wagner performance from Peter Russell
I’d long ago given up on my Goldilocks search for a “just right” complete Tristan und Isolde recording starring Jon Vickers, my hands-down tenor of choice.
By Peter Russell
48 comments
Jaundiced view
Richard Lynn bravely asks what we’re hoping to get out of the continued Peter Gelb-bashing — and whether our expectations of him have ever been fair
A favorite Wagner performance from Roger Pines
I’d never heard Götterdämmerung in a live performance until 1985 at The Dallas Opera. OMG, so long ago!
By Roger Pines
58 comments
A favorite Wagner performance from Mister Snow
It took me a while to “warm up” to Wagner.
By Mister Snow
82 comments
Sing out, Louise
Christof Loy‘s Louise in Aix-en-Provence scratches at the urban– and operatic– unconscious
Cross my heart and hope to die
Wolf Trap Opera’s stirring production of Dialogues des Carmélites was a welcome respite from a brutally hot and humid DC summer.
Shadows of a doubt
R.B. Schlather‘s shadowy production with Heartbeat Opera at the Williamstown Theatre Festival proves that Vanessa might be coming into its own at last
The Aix factor
This summer’s festival, taking place amid record high temperatures and in the wake of its artistic director, Pierre Audi, featured a disquietingly zeigeisty focus on sexual violence.
A lion in winter
Sherrill Milnes sits down with Brendan Latimer to talk about his life, career, and what he hopes to pass along to the next generation
Robert Wilson 1941-2025
The groundbreaking director and designer of works like Einstein on the Beach died earlier today at his home in Water Mill, New York
He plays the violin
This Bard production, led by Leon Botstein, makes the strongest possible case musically, dramatically and visually for Smetana’s opera Dalibor.
Gilda! mia Gilda!…È morta!
Mexican soprano Gilda Cruz-Romo died on 28 June at the age of 85 and Chris’s Cache remembers her with live recordings of a frequent role and a rather rare one: a last-minute Met Tosca plus perhaps her only stab at the Cherubini Medea.
Cask in the glory
A North American debut of a respectable French Baroque ensemble, an ebullient presentation of La fille du régiment, and an afternoon soiree in Wine Country proved to be the hottest (yet affordable!) tickets around here this Summer.
Thane and suffering
In the 1847 version of Macbeth, the forces of Teatro Nuovo lacked the thunderous punch this music can pack, but provided a pleasant ride
Change my mind about Regietheater
Carmen Paddock and Mr. Portafiori aren’t getting the hype behind Ivo van Hove, Krzysztof Warlikowski, and Calitxo Bieito
The gaul of some people
It’s Norma, darling. We know.
Norma demente
Jessica Pratt’s last-minute Norma in Milan might well be the stuff of legend
I’m never gonna dance again
A starry cast is hampered by Christof Loy‘s dour production of Rusalka in Barcelona
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).