Living the part
Diana Soviero chats with Roger Pines about six decades of performing, four decades of teaching, and how she’s handing the tradition off to the next generation.
Teatro alla Scala
Faith in their hands shall snap in two
Franz Welser-Möst leads a rigorous, if emotionally staid, performance of Verdi‘s Requiem at Carnegie Hall.
Mediterranean crossings
Grand Tier Grab Bag anticipates Elina Garanca‘s upcoming Zwischenfach pivot by sharing her in some other not-quite-mezzo repertoire opposite Brian Jagde.
Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District
A live broadcast from Milan of Teatro alla Scala's traditional Sant'Ambrogio opening night starring Sara Jakubiak
Streamed December 7, 2025 at 12:00 PM
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Everything the light touches
Vincent Lombardo pays poetic tribute to the 60-year-long career of Robert Wilson.
Così fan tutte
A live broadcast from Teatro alla Scala starring Elsa Dreisig, Nina van Essen, Luca Micheletti, and Giovanni Sala
Streamed November 5, 2025 at 2:00 PM
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“An opportunity to deliver”
Daniele Rustioni, who starts his tenure as Met Principal Guest Conductor with Don Giovanni this week, might just be the opera conductor we’ve all been waiting for — and he’s betting on a long haul.
The emperor’s new groove
A new recording of Boito‘s Nerone from Cagliari shows off an epic opera with fire and flamboyance
Cross my heart and hope to die
Wolf Trap Opera’s stirring production of Dialogues des Carmélites was a welcome respite from a brutally hot and humid DC summer.
The gaul of some people
It’s Norma, darling. We know.
Norma demente
Jessica Pratt’s last-minute Norma in Milan might well be the stuff of legend
Canonically ossified
When such a canonically ossified work like Verdi’s Aïda is directed at all (let alone as ambitiously as Damiano Michieletto at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino), it does feel like a completely different opera
Changing habits
A new production of Dialogues des Carmélites featuring Anna Caterina Antonacci proves that it’s hard to be an iconoclast in Venice.
Turkish sound bath
A brilliant L’italiana in Algeri in Rome has Larry Wolff once again thinking about “singing Turks”
I, Claudio
Claudio Abbado made his Met debut on 7 October 1968 conducting Verdi’s Don Carlo, led five more performances through 14 November, and then never returned. Chris’s Cache offers the only complete recording I’ve run across from that run.
Not an asset to the abbey
Francesco Filidei’s new opera The Name of the Rose struggles to bridge the past and the present in Milan
Bye bye baby
Following last week’s performances in Cleveland, Ronnie Banerjee compares six different versions of the Kostelnicka’s monologue from Leos Janácek’s Jenufa for “Perspectives on an Aria”
Weill Triptych
Seven Deadly Sins, Mahagonny Singspiel, and The Songs of Happy End live from Milan
Masques et bergamasques
John Yohalem wraps up Donizetti Month at parterre box with a look back at nearly six decades of Donizetti operagoing.
Il nome della rosa
A live broadcast from Milan of the world premiere of Francesco Filidei’s opera based on Umberto Eco‘s novel
Selvaggia e aspra e forte
Pascal Dusapin‘s dynamic and demanding traversal of Dante‘s Commedia arrives at the Paris Opera
A favorite Donizetti performance from Lisette Oropesa
Donizetti wrote so much great music, it’s hard to single out a favorite opera, or even a preferred aria!
By Lisette Oropesa
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L’opera seria
Florian Leopold Gassmann‘s rare comedy live from Milan
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).