Faust or famine
In a satanic panic, this week Chris’s Cache presents trio of performances of Mefistofele
East Coast
You can go your own way
Eli Jacobson on a luscious evening of early Strauss with Guntram at Carnegie Hall
The Queen of Spades
The final Saturday Matinee Broadcast of the 2024-25 season, live from New York
Höchste Lust!
Yannick Nézet-Séguin leads the Philadelphia Orchestra, Stuart Skelton, and Nina Stemme in a Tristan und Isolde for the ages
Antony and Cleopatra
The final live weeknight broadcast of the 2024-25 season from New York
Summertime lovin’
An impressively well-rounded revival of Francesca Zambello‘s production of Porgy and Bess concludes the Washington National Opera season
Many happy returns
The Met’s mostly successful revivals of The Queen of Spades and La bohème showcase the returns of Sonya Yoncheva and Corinne Winters
The Bible meets Edward Albee
The Met doesn’t have the monopoly on Salome this spring — look no further than Catapult Opera’s San Giovanni Battista which opens in Brooklyn next month.
Entrance of the Willis
Rachel Willis-Sorensen is the winner of the 2025 Beverly Sills Award, per the Met press office
Virginia is for lovers
An innovative score and fluid production by Denyce Graves-Montgomery are highlights of Virginia Opera’s production of Loving v. Virginia
Reconcilable differences
Cameron Kelsall reports on a transcendent Jenufa from the Cleveland Orchestra
The revolution will be digitized
The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs at the Kennedy Center: not a poorly made opera, but so relentlessly mid.
Antony and Cleopatra
John Adams‘s newest opera in a live broadcast from New York
Promising young women
Ahead of her return to the Met, soprano Corinne Winters chats with Kevin Ng about her repertoire, overcoming biases about her voice type, and how she plans to play “energetic, young women” as long as she can.
Satan keeps the beat
With tight, jazzy orchestrations, a queer-coded Mephistopheles, and sassy modern recitative, Heartbeat Opera’s fast 100-minute Faust delivers Gounod in miniature, minus some of the schmaltz.
Sweet birds of youth
Buoyed by a cast of emerging stars, the Metropolitan Opera’s revival of Il Barbiere di Siviglia asserted a key trait of this ubiquitous buffo: it is a young person’s opera.
Up stares, down stares
Ahead of tomorrow’s Live in HD, Michael Steinberg talks Leonore, Salome, and the “endemic misogyny” of Claus Guth‘s new production
Sexual orientalization
An impressive cast blurs binaries as John Adams‘s ambitious Antony and Cleopatra arrives at the Met
Concerto barocco
Christopher Corwin on three stylish sopranos delighting audiences live in New York and on recording in a trio of new releases.
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).