Summer isn’t opera’s most generous season. But it is opera’s strangest. The major houses go dark, and what’s left is the festival circuit, which is to say: a converted barn in Virginia, a medieval cloister in Provence, the hill above a small Bavarian town where Wagner built a temple to himself.
Tourist guidebooks don’t know opera. Tripadvisor is for those travelers. And Marriott Bonvoy… oh darling, who has the strength?
Right, so where does one stay? Where does she eat between performances? What does she do with the eight hours that aren’t Götterdämmerung?
These guides — written by the cher public, for the cher public — answer the questions a festival’s official website never will, at least not in so entertaining a manner.
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The Parterre Box Guide to Aix-en-Provence
The Festival d’Aix is second to none in Europe — and it happens in a Provençal town where the cars stay out and the cafés keep their own hours. A guide to making a week of it.
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The Parterre Box Guide to Bayreuth
After more than twenty years of unsuccessful attempts to secure tickets, I imagined that experiencing a performance at the Festspielhaus would be a singular, once-in-a-lifetime event. Yet…
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The Parterre Box Guide to Opera Theatre of St. Louis
Free museums, cheap lodging, toasted ravioli, and an opera company that takes risks the big houses won’t. A guide to Opera Theatre of St. Louis and the city around it.
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The Parterre Box Guide to Wolf Trap Opera
Visiting Wolf Trap doesn’t have to be limited to the park. Where to stay, eat, drink, and explore across Northern Virginia, DC, and Maryland — your Parterre Box guide to a mid-Atlantic opera getaway.
And more guides are in the works. If there’s a festival you’d like to see covered — or you’ve got a favorite restaurant we missed — please spill to [email protected].