Konstantin Krimmel plays the title role in a live broadcast from Munich
Kent Nagano‘s and the Richard-Wagner-Akademie‘s historically informed Ring Cycle takes on Siegfried in Dresden
Opera Director and Detroit Opera Artistic Director Yuval Sharon begins his recent book A New Philosophy of Opera by imagining a future – some forty to fifty years from now – in which opera ceases to exist as an art form.
Contrasting approaches to Regie duke it out in Cavalleria rusticana & Pagliacci and Rusalka in Munich
The Met’s mostly successful revivals of The Queen of Spades and La bohème showcase the returns of Sonya Yoncheva and Corinne Winters
Asmik Grigorian’s scorching turn in Il trittico in Paris has Nigel Wilkinson wondering, ‘what is it that makes Americans so weepy?’
Madison Schindele on loving Die Frau ohne Schatten as a “woman of childbearing age”
Christina Nilsson‘s debut enlivens the Met’s new Aïda.
Corinne Winters sings the title role in Janácek‘s opera live from Munich.
Eli Jacobson inaugurates parterre box’s new “Perspectives on the Aria” feature with a deep dive into Leonore’s “Abscheulicher!” from Beethoven’s Fidelio which returns to the Metropolitan Opera tomorrow with the Met’s current dramatic soprano star Lise Davidsen as Leonore.
Opera San José (OSJ) is continuing the second half of its 41st season with a company premiere of Béla Bartók’s Symbolist opera Bluebeard’s Castle (A kékszakállú herceg vára), with a libretto by his friend and poet Béla Balázs, and OSJ truly spared no effort to make the occasion a memorable one.
This is an astonishing recording by one of the greatest singers of the 19th century.
A live broadcast of a new production from the Deutsche Oper Berlin.
I was so beguiled by Erika Baikoff when I saw her perform at the Sag Harbor Song Festival back in September. Such a lovely and musical voice that just flows and when she sang this, she got mid-note applause during the final sustained B.
In Munich, performances by 97-year-old Herbert Blomstedt and 32-year-old Thomas Guggeis show the city’s orchestral ensembles at their best
Washington National Opera rounded out its season opening weekend with a one-night-only performance entitled “Gods & Mortals: A Celebration of Wagner” the evening after the premiere of its new production of Fidelio.
Sparks flew when the San Francisco Opera opened their new production of Richard Wagner’s monumental Tristan und Isolde on Saturday, October 19th, at the War Memorial Opera House.
“Let’s start at the very beginning” of Kent Nagano’s pioneering complete Ring project which was recently discussed here in depth in Montagu James’s review of Die Walküre.
Unlike more surface-level historically informed practice which has become the norm in early music ensembles, this project stands out in its surprisingly deep engagements with the ethical and practical challenges posed by “recreating” Wagner’s sound.
Dmitri Tcherniakov’s interpretation of Wagner’s Der Fliegende Höllander presents an engrossing character study about Senta and the Dutchman’s struggles against their insular community’s stifling conformism.
Jay Scheib’s Augmented-Reality Parsifal is a cautionary reminder that technological innovation shouldn’t absolve directors from the exacting work of deriving intelligent and fascinating theater from the source material.
In Nike Wagner’s essay “The Sounding Silence,” the German dramaturge argues that “the longing for deathrepresents the central motif” of her great-grandfather’s opera Tristan und Isolde.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
×
Sign up for Parterre’s free newsletter.
Exclusive opera reviews, commentary, and top reads
delivered to your email weekly…ish.