Sing of happy, not sad
Matthias Davids‘s reactionary new production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg might be fun, but no one comes to Bayreuth for fun.
Germany
Siegfried
The third installment of the 2025 Ring from Bayreuth
Die Walküre
A slightly delayed broadcast of the second installment of this year’s Ring from Bayreuth
Das Rheingold
A live broadcast of the first installment of this summer’s Ring from Bayreuth
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
A live broadcast of the opening of the 2025 Bayreuth Festival
Die schweigsame Frau
Christian Thielemann conducts a live broadcast from Berlin
Breaking the box
Jacquelyn Stucker talks to Kevin Ng about repertoire, tearing down the Fach system, and what it takes to make music from baroque to George Benjamin her own.
There’s a parade in town
Les Brigands at the Paris Opera is an expensive joke that never lands
Cavalleria Rusticana & Pagliacci
Daniele Rustioni leads a verismo double bill recorded in Munich last month
Stiffelio
A performance recorded earlier this month in Dortmund with Angelo Villari and Pretty Yende
Don Giovanni
Konstantin Krimmel plays the title role in a live broadcast from Munich
They call me the wanderer
Kent Nagano‘s and the Richard-Wagner-Akademie‘s historically informed Ring Cycle takes on Siegfried in Dresden
Do you believe in life after opera?
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.
Married to the mob
Contrasting approaches to Regie duke it out in Cavalleria rusticana & Pagliacci and Rusalka in Munich
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
Three ages of woman
Asmik Grigorian’s scorching turn in Il trittico in Paris has Nigel Wilkinson wondering, ‘what is it that makes Americans so weepy?’
The unkindest Kind
Madison Schindele on loving Die Frau ohne Schatten as a “woman of childbearing age”
Norma
Rachel Willis-Sorensen sings the title role for the first time in a live performance from Berlin.
Nilsson ratings
Christina Nilsson‘s debut enlivens the Met’s new Aïda.
Kát’a Kabanová
Corinne Winters sings the title role in Janácek‘s opera live from Munich.
Wishin’ and hopin’ and thinkin’ and prayin’
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.
Another op’nin’, another show
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.
An der geliebter ‘ferne’
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).