Nobody emotes like Joyce DiDonato, and this week Parterre Box spotlights her new recording of Dido and Aeneas with a look at a recent live performance in the part.
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.
For our first review in a new series, we turn to the new recording of Dido and Aeneas featuring Joyce DiDonato, Michael Spyres and Maxim Emelyanychev leading Il Pomo d’Oro.
In its first go-around in November 2022, Kevin Puts’s The Hours (libretto by Greg Pierce based on the novel by Michael Cunningham and the screenplay for the Stephen Daldry’s 2002 film was a box office bullseye for the Metropolitan Opera.
John Nelson conducts Michael Spyres and Joyce DiDonato in a live broadcast from Strasbourg
Joyce DiDonato’s Eden immerses listeners within a centuries-spanning musical meditation that channels the majesty of our natural world.
The film of The Hours failed to effectively weave together the novel’s trio of threads of interiority about suicide and secondarily literary creation. I wondered if an opera would stand a better chance at achieving that? Based on Tuesday’s diva-encrusted stage premiere of Kevin Puts and Greg Pierce’s The Hours, its creators didn’t pull it off either.
To conclude its triumphant season, last week the Met Orchestra performed its annual Carnegie Hall concerts under music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin and once again performed superbly.
A concert performance featuring Lisette Oropesa, Joyce DiDonato and Michael Spyres, with Il Pomo d’Oro Choir and Orchestra conducted by Maxim Emelyanychev.
Fueled by a fierce intelligence, deep earnestness, exceptional eloquence, and social media savvy, Joyce DiDonato is a presence and a power, as much when speaking and thinking as when singing. Who better to imagine a program that would suit this (we hope) unique moment?
“American mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato sings a program of alluring and acrobatic arias, accompanied by piano and chamber ensemble, in a unique venue—the converted Jahrhunderthalle in Germany’s Ruhr area.”
A change of pace this afternoon: Joyce DiDonato and Piotr Beczala sing excerpts from Werther.
Handel’s biting Agrippina finally arrived at the Metropolitan Opera Thursday evening 310 years after its Venetian premiere.
Joyce DiDonato’s take on Winterreise is a conceptual misstep that, song after song, frustratingly dilutes and distracts from an often rewarding musical performance.
Maestro Yannick Nézet-Séguin, always with a gift for gab, is ever more loquacious in concerts, often talking directly to the audience.
High concept! Joyce DiDonato is Mrs. Roper!
The Met Live in 2018-2020 HD series (including Joyce DiDonato‘s role debut as Carlotta Campion) is now on sale.
“Semiramide—a better opera than this dude expected!”
Bellini’s Norma Monday evening didn’t at all improve on the production it was replacing.
I don’t usually attend a performance of an opera I’ve known well most of my life expecting a revelation.
The Bayerische Staatsoper just announced, in addition to their usual bounty of webcasts, two special presentations: a repeat of Semiramide and a live telecast of Andrea Chenier.
Watch and discuss, cher public, as the Bayerische Staatsoper streams a new production of Rossini’s Semiramide boasting a starry cast including Joyce DiDonato, Alex Esposito, Daniela Barcellona and Lawrence Brownlee.
Joyce DiDonato’s atest album, In War & Peace: Harmony through music, is more specific than it sounds.
“Grammy Award winner and international opera star Joyce DiDonato will perform on October 3 in White Rabbit Red Rabbit.”
The Richard Tucker Music Foundation’s annual gala promises (note, promises) a particularly glittery roster this year.
