Romeo and Gilda
The winners of the evening were the composer Riccardo Zandonai and Teatro Grattacielo which pulled off a near-impossible feat with success.
Metropolitan Opera
The mothership and mecca of opera in America—and home base for Parterre Box.
Varying the song
The opera The Rake’s Progress, as many people know already, was inspired by a series of engravings and paintings of the same name by William Hogarth, showing the decline of a young man into depravity and insanity.
Lucia di Lammermoor
Riccardo Frizza conducts Nadine Sierra (Lucia), Javier Camarena (Edgardo), Artur Rucinski (Enrico) and Christian Van Horn (Raimondo.)
Reviving a pharaoh
The Met brought back 2019 smash Akhnaten last night, with nearly the exact same cast and creative team, and with nearly the same knockout effect of three years ago.
Resisting the recognizable
It was Matthew Jocelyn’s libretto, with its disorientingly deconstructive approach to its source text, that gave Brett Dean’s Hamlet its identity.
Stained class
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.
A crazier day
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.
Twisted sisters
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.
Through different eyes
I was reminded at the Met’s season premiere of Eugene Onegin Friday night always to expect the unexpected.
Eugene Onegin
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.
Enter the queen
“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.”
Soaring on multicolored wings
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.
Seria effect
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.
A Concert for Ukraine
Met Music Director Yannick Nézet-Ségui will lead the Met Orchestra and Chorus and star soloists.
The Met supports Ukraine
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.
Desert island diva
This sterling revival shows the Metropolitan to be surviving well and in good shape.
Our retrospection will be all to the future
The Met’s new season, including Medea with Sondra Radvanovsky, set parterrian tongues wagging during the month of February 2022.
(Some) Thoughts on ‘Don Carlos’
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.
Midwinter marriage
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.
Any old palace
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.
After midnight
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.
Every little thing she does is magic
A good time seemed to be had by all though I don’t recall seeing a single child in attendance.
Tosca
Yannick Nézet-Séguin leads Sondra Radvanovsky (Tosca), Brian Jagde (Cavaradossi), George Gagnidze (Scarpia) and Patrick Carfizzi (Sacristan).
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).
Win a Free Ticket to Opening Night at the Met!
Quinn Kelsey and Lise Davidsen star in the Met's new Macbeth. We're giving away one ticket, so screw your courage to the sticking place and enter now!
