Lise Davidsen‘s first Isolde is only one of the highlights of Tristan und Isolde at the Liceu in Barcelona.
A classic German fairytale gets a modern update at the Staatsoper Berlin.
I had the pleasure of attending Manon starring Lisette Oropesa and Benjamin Bernheim at Opernhaus Zürich this past October.
Anticipating the titanic arrival of Lise Davidsen‘s Isolde in New York in March, Parterre Box is thrilled to share a bit of her debut opposite Clay Hilley recorded in Barcelona last week.
Part of the annual Festival Illica honoring the city’s native son Luigi Illica, the performance offered a precious opportunity to hear a rare score by an even rarer composer in a gorgeous medieval piazza.
“When there’s so much to get right, unsurprisingly a lot can and, as we all know, does go wrong.”
I can’t say 2025 was my best operagoing year; apart from a superb Fille du régiment, most of my good nights at the opera were decidedly mixed affairs.
Sir Simon Rattle and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra strike (almost) all the right notes in their new recording of Mozart’s Idomeneo.
Tobias Kratzer digs beneath the surface of Strauss‘s Intermezzo in an excellent new DVD from Deutsche Oper Berlin.
Ahead of the return of Louise to the Opéra National de Lyon, Parterre Box features Elsa Dreisig in a much more famous French opera.
“Call me traditional, but I want to see a silver platter!”
Fine music-making meets a clunker of a production in La Monnaie‘s revival of Norma
Grand Tier Grab Bag anticipates Elina Garanca‘s upcoming Zwischenfach pivot by sharing her in some other not-quite-mezzo repertoire opposite Brian Jagde.
Juan Diego Flórez and Damiano Michieletto concoct an absinthe-fueled fever dream in a new DVD from The Royal Ballet and Opera and Opusarte.
Théâtre de l’Athénée Louis-Jouvet mounts a raucous production of Hervé’s Le petit Faust.
A patchy production and musical performance can’t dull the edge of Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny at the Komische Oper Berlin
Les Arts Florissants present two ravishing programs in Brooklyn and Manhattan.
Big voices overwhelm Claus Guth‘s toothless staging of Khovanshchina at the Berlin Staatsoper.
It would be difficult to find a better description for Ambroise Thomas’s newly-recovered Psyché, recently heard in a new recording from Palazzetto Bru Zane, than the one uttered by her suitors: “Charmante Psyché!”
Offenbach‘s Robinson Crusoé is salvaged from obscurity.
Tamara Wilson and Stanislas de Barbeyrac are the standouts in Calixto Bieito’s underwhelming Die Walküre in Paris
Composer Philip Venables talks about queer utopias and bending gender and genre in The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions which opens at the Park Avenue Armory this week.
Ha ha ha, so gorgeous!
Vincent Lombardo pays poetic tribute to the 60-year-long career of Robert Wilson.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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