With Siegfried, the directorial vision of the Paris Opera‘s Ring cycle finally takes root.
I had the pleasure of attending Manon starring Lisette Oropesa and Benjamin Bernheim at Opernhaus Zürich this past October.
“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.
Fine music-making meets a clunker of a production in La Monnaie‘s revival of Norma
Théâtre de l’Athénée Louis-Jouvet mounts a raucous production of Hervé’s Le petit Faust.
Les Arts Florissants present two ravishing programs in Brooklyn and Manhattan.
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
Only the singers, led by Benjamin Bernheim, can salvage a dismal La Damnation de Faust at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées.
Shirin Neshat‘s Aïda in Paris is a typical instance of what happens when an artist is brought in to direct an opera.
Rolando Villazón opens up about his production of La sonnambula, how he develops characters, and what makes opera dance.
From an early age I knew I should have been French.
Christof Loy‘s Louise in Aix-en-Provence scratches at the urban– and operatic– unconscious
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.
Marc Minkowski conducts a performance recorded last week at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence
A live broadcast from the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence
Les Brigands at the Paris Opera is an expensive joke that never lands
A performance recorded last month and reviewed here featuring Véronique Gens, Niamh O’Sullivan, Regula Mühlemann, and Peter Rose
Asmik Grigorian pulls a hat trick in Puccini‘s triple bill recorded (and reviewed) last month in Paris
Krzysztof Warlikowski‘s Der Rosenkavalier at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées surpasses even Nigel Wilkinson‘s high ‘WTF threshhold’
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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