Jenufa
Corinne Winters and Karita Mattila lead a performance recorded last month in London
New York
More people should listen to Benita Valente
Many of us of a certain age had the good luck to see Benita Valente frequently at the Met. My memory is that she was treated rather like a house singer at first, and only later was appreciated for her extraordinary gifts.
By Le Petit Yniold
99 comments
The baptism of Konstantin
Sitting in Park Avenue Armory last week for the American debut of baritone Konstantin Krimmel, the rush of joy I felt was two-fold.
The Met should revive La Gioconda
It used to be proverbial on the Met Opera Quiz, usually quoted by quiz master Edward Downes: “If you can’t remember where a certain plot event occurs … it happens in La Gioconda.”
By John Yohalem
159 comments
Americans in Paris
Even if our monolingual American tourists can be the source of vexation for many a Parisian, our singers gave much for the city’s operagoers to admire this month in stylish productions of Semele at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and I Puritani at the Opéra Bastille.
Metropolitan Opera 2025-26
The Metropolitan Opera has revealed its upcoming season.
The Met should revive Saint-François d’Assise
The Met was built for Saint-François d’Assise. It is a huge work, and it needs a huge space. And Ingo Metzmacher.
By Remko Jas
118 comments
Kiss me beneath the milky twilight
Only disordered and volcanic intellects need apply for this beautifully deranged production of Salome from Heartbeat Opera
Look to the western sky
Not even howling winds and thunderous rain could dampen the excitement of Bay Area audiences to experience Norwegian soprano Lise Davidsen for the first time in the Bay Area at Zellerbach Hall Berkeley last Tuesday, 4 February.
Goddess in three persons
Patrick Mack looks back on “a great, nay, historic evening,” Renata Scotto‘s 1981 performance of Il trittico, now newly available on Met Opera on Demand.
Paul Plishka 1941-2025
The American bass, a fixture of the Metropolitan Opera between 1967 and 2018, was 83.
Aged in oak
When the birthdays start to pile up in the double digits in big round numbers, you start to examine your past and review what you have done with your life.
A favorite Mozart performance from Last Castrato
This is an astonishing recording by one of the greatest singers of the 19th century.
By Last Castrato
141 comments
Ode to Ode to Joy
Are Beethoven’s symphonies overplayed? Yes, but for a reason. While this justification may sound cliché, Beethoven’s humanist universalism is a sentiment that feels urgent in an era of widespread polarization and pessimism.
Life is like a box of Mozartkugeln
Following last week’s multiple versions of three prime concert arias, Chris’s Cache concludes its Mozart month by offering more of those special vocal works, this time twenty-five arias for mezzo, tenor or bass, as well as more for soprano.
Les Arts Florissants
William Christie curates an evening of French Baroque music in a live broadcast from Carnegie Hall.
Act III at last
John Yohalem reports from the New York Dramatic Voices performance of Act III of Die Walküre
I was on your side, Bill, when you were losin’
Target Margin Theater proudly boasts that Show/Boat: A River, its small-scale and bare-bones staging of Show Boat (at the Skirball Center on Washington Square through the 26th), is a “bold reimagining” of the classic Jerome Kern & Oscar Hammerstein show, a “new adaptation that explores America’s transformation from the Jim Crow 1880s to the Chicago of the Great Migration to the challenges of today,” but I don’t see it.
Perspectives, reflections, obscurity, and illusion
Christopher Cerrone and Stephanie Fleischmann‘s opera at the Prototype Festival re-sets Rashomon in the Pacific Northwest and binds its characters into a hellish cycle of violence with a dark, hypnotic score
Shocker and awe
In 2011, Sondra Radvanovsky‘s Tosca proved promising; fourteen years later, it was absolutely magnificent, a completely satisfying musical and dramatic embodiment of a challenging role by an artist at the peak of her powers.
In limbo
In the “tormented writers’” room, two actors in goth makeup and bride-of-Frankenstein wigs are clacking on typewriters and throwing crumpled papers on the floor.
Consumptive professionals
Given the keen interest in recent posts of Met pirates of Montserrat Caballé in Verdi, Chris’s Cache concludes its trio with the Spanish soprano’s Met Violetta, along with additional Met in-house recordings of Virginia Zeani, Pilar Lorengar, Jeanette Pilou, and Joan Sutherland as Verdi’s doomed courtesan.
A favorite Mozart performance from RudigerVT
At the time of the recording’s release, Kathleen Battle was getting established.
By RudigerVT
93 comments
Tick, tick… boomers!
Eat the Document, which premiered at the Prototype Festival last week, compresses a decades-long, nonlinear story into a swift 90 minutes while still finding time to pause for reflection.
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).