It was a gloomy, chilly, rainy day in Chicago on Sunday afternoon, a perfect reflection of the sad and gloomy fates of the title characters in Lyric Opera of Chicago’s presentation of The Three Queens.
By the time Roberto Devereux saw its premiere at Napoli’s Teatro San Carlo on 29 October, 1837, Gaetano Donizetti had lost, in an 18-month time frame, both his parents, two still-born children, and his beloved wife Virginia.
Just when you thought it was safe to return to Rossini and Verdi—blam!
Friday’s season premiere at the Met of Donizetti’s opera about the doomed Scottish queen proved surprisingly satisfying and a genuine success for Sondra Radvanovsky.
Tell us: What was the best of 2025?
Parterre Box concludes the thrilling first year of Talk of the Town by inviting your lightning rod opinions on several more categories of operatic argumentation.
