It was Matthew Jocelyn’s libretto, with its disorientingly deconstructive approach to its source text, that gave Brett Dean’s Hamlet its identity.
A Baroque Valentine’s with Opera Lafayette | Feb | DC & NYC
Celebrate love in all its guises with tender ballads, amorous duets, cheeky verses, and bawdy drinking songs plus food, cocktails and wine.
With no disrespect to Nadine Sierra, who as Lucia acquits herself honorably if not magically in vocal terms, the undisputed cause célèbre here is director Simon Stone.
Saturday’s performance of Le nozze di Figaro at the Met mined the humor from Mozart’s divine setting of Beaumarchais’s play about a crazy day in the Almaviva household.
Nina Stemme’s Elektra always seemed the sanest individual onstage never quite giving over to obsession or hysteria with a good line in mordant sarcasm and contempt.
I was reminded at the Met’s season premiere of Eugene Onegin Friday night always to expect the unexpected.
Ailyn Pérez makes her role debut as Tatiana opposite Igor Golovatenko in the title role of the urbane nobleman who rejects her, much to his later dismay.
“Eleonora Buratto will make her role debut as Elisabeth de Valois in Verdi’s Don Carlo in the 2022–23 season, replacing Anna Netrebko for the first five performances of the run.”
Eleanora Buratto at this fully matured point of her career has a warm, creamy full lyric soprano that has the roundness and sweet warmth of a Freni but can also expand into the spinto power of a Tebaldi.
While it must be admitted that Elza van den Heever doesn’t have an ideally warm and agile Handel voice, she evidenced fierce control over her instrument and skillfully built a powerful portrait of the courageous Rodelida fighting for her survival.
Met Music Director Yannick Nézet-Ségui will lead the Met Orchestra and Chorus and star soloists.
The Metropolitan Opera announced today “A Concert for Ukraine” on Monday, March 14, at 6:00pm ET, with Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin leading the Met Orchestra and Chorus.
This sterling revival shows the Metropolitan to be surviving well and in good shape.
The Met’s new season, including Medea with Sondra Radvanovsky, set parterrian tongues wagging during the month of February 2022.
In online discussion on “Favorite Opera” and cuts in opera in general, it seems Don Carlos (in its original French title) or Don Carlo (as it is better known in Italian) – with or without the “s” – generally get the most votes both as favorite and as an opera from which deplorable cuts are made.
Despite having lost its announced Cherubino, conductor and Count (the latter in the midst of rehearsals), the season premiere of Le Nozze di Figaro Saturday afternoon proved to be one of the most enjoyable Met Mozart performances I’ve attended in ages.
At the heart of this success was Quinn Kelsey’s revelatory take on Rigoletto. He was matched, vocally and dramatically, by Rosa Feola’s Gilda—a tour-de-force performance.
The Met’s Cinderella is a charming adaptation of Massenet’s opera. Frothy, fun, and enchanting, it is a magical holiday treat for the whole family to enjoy.
A good time seemed to be had by all though I don’t recall seeing a single child in attendance.
“Rolando Villazón makes an exciting role debut as the lovable lout Papageno.”
Sondra Radvanovsky was a force of nature as Tosca on Thursday night at the Met.
No, we don’t really need another “Orpheus” opera. Or, rather, we don’t need this one.
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.
