La fiamma è bella!
A new recording of La fiamma from Deutsche Oper Berlin sets Respighi’s score ablaze.
Germany
Alien encounter
“Protect the dolls, they say, but who really cares for them?” This question, posed by performer Mara Snip during the postlude of Neuköllner Oper’s 1000 Airplanes on the Roof, had a clear answer: Aliens.
Scarcity mindset
Michael Thalmeier‘s Tristan und Isolde in Berlin asks, how much minimalism is too much minimalism?
Let’s do the time warp again
Tobias Kratzer‘s time-traveling Arabella from the Deutsche Oper Berlin, now available on DVD, turns the opera’s problems into its strengths.
Grail against the machine
A new production of Parsifal at San Francisco Opera stirred something deep inside Michael Anthonio about how music soothes the soul
Nothing makes me feel better than Hänsel und Gretel
I was first exposed to Hänsel und Gretel as a child, likely via The Metropolitan Opera’s 1982 PBS telecast.
By Weill Fan
Comment
Undoing of woman
Anthony Hüseyin‘s eclectic recital in Berlin explores femicide in opera through a queer, nonbinary lens.
Nothing makes me feel better than The Cunning Little Vixen
The opera is life affirming, but also recognizes that life comes to an end.
By Ethel Clutterbuck
Comment
Roméo et Juliette
Juan Diego Flórez and Nino Machaidze lead a performance recorded in Berlin in June
Streamed September 20, 2025 at 2:03 PM
Comment
Pompeo Magno
A performance recorded on Friday at the Bayreuth Baroque Festival starring Max Emanuel Cencic
Streamed September 14, 2025 at 2:00 PM
Comment
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
Attila
Robert Pomakov and Leah Gordon lead a performance recorded last month in Heidenheim
Streamed August 23, 2025 at 2:00 PM
18 comments
A favorite Wagner performance from CKurwenal
Dame Gwyneth Jones as Brünnhilde pretty much started it all for me.
By CKurwenal
59 comments
Gonna build a heaven from a little hell
Tobias Kratzer‘s Das Rheingold in Munich kicks off a Ring for the post-secular age
This is what trauma looks like
Valentin Schwarz‘s and Simone Young‘s Ring, in its final outing at Bayreuth, is dramaturgically messy and musically excellent.
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.
Space oddity
In Lohengrin, populism comes to an apocalyptic end on the Bavarian stage
A favorite Wagner performance from grimoaldo2
I suppose Der fliegende Holländer is my favorite Wagner opera — a riveting masterpiece from start to finish, dramatically and musically.
By Grimoaldo2
53 comments
Lohengrin
A performance recorded earlier today at the Bayreuth Festival
Golden shower
Claus Guth mines urgent and contemporary commentary from Die Liebe der Danae in Munich.
Götterdämmerung
The final installment of the 2025 Ring from Bayreuth
Robber barons
A revival of the furious I masnadieri at the Bayerische Staatsoper falls short of perfection – and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Parsifal
A performance recorded earlier today at the Bayreuth Festival
Old wife’s tale
Pénélope at the Bayerische Staatsoper’s summer festival spotlights the crossroads between the nostalgic and the progressive.
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).