Sondra Radvanovsky takes up candle-toting duties tonight at 7:25 in a live broadcast of Tosca from the Met. Discuss!
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.
On this day in 1883 the Metropolitan Opera House opened with Gounod’s Faust.
The Met is on it with something something woker than woke: a noirish psychodrama of a frigid hysteric who seeks redemption via Freudian analysis!
He returned. He sang. He didn’t get hanged.
Wolfgang Koch has withdrawn from the Metropolitan Opera’s fall performances of Puccini’s Tosca, due to illness.
“Yonghoon Lee will sing Radamès in tonight’s performance of Verdi’s Aida, replacing Aleksandrs Antonenko, who is ill,” says the Met press office with a perfectly straight face.
On this day in 1965 soprano Renata Scotto made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Cio-Cio-San.
Kathleen Turner will join the cast of Donizetti’s comedy La Fille du Régiment at the Metropolitan Opera February 7–March 2.
It’s surprising to read that, as of this writing, La fanciulla del west has only had 105 performances at the Metropolitan Opera.
Come back to Kohl Mountain with Anita Rachvelishvili as well as the aforementioned Anna Netrebko in a live web broadcast of Aida from the Met Tuesday night at 7:25.
La Cieca has just heard that Kristian Benedikt is singing the role of Samson at the Met this evening.
Anna Netrebko is the greatest performing artist singing opera today. Nobody else comes close; she makes me love her in a way that verges on the erotic.
On Tuesday we got one of the Met’s inveterate classics, which meant yet another opportunity to gaze upon the old accessories: Donkey cart! Teal shawl! Fugly plaid slacks!
For opening night 2018, the Met offered the creaky but appealing biblical epic Samson et Dalila, presumably as a vehicle for Elina Garanca and Roberto Alagna.
Where will the elite meet? Why, at the Met for the opening night premiere of Samson et Dalila, of course!
A “spy” unaffiliated with parterre box whispers to La Cieca that yesterday’s dress rehearsal of Samson et Dalila at the Met was sung by Nancy Fabiola Herrera.
A gaggle of our parterre critics (not pictured) had what the kids call a “kiki” recently and “spilled the tea” (as the middle-aged folks say) about their greatest expectations for the New York fall season.
Yet once more again Peter Gelb has done the impossible: starting in the 2019-2020 season the Met will offer regular Sunday matinees. And the season will extend into early June!
“Los in den Club, wir haben uns gerade getrennt. Ich zieh jetzt mein eigenes kleines Ding durch.”
Michaela Schuster will sing Waltraute in all performances of Wagner’s Götterdämmerung, replacing Sarah Connolly.
At long last (and about fucking time) undisputed genius Stefan Herheim will make his Metropolitan Opera debut, staging Les Vêpres siciliennes.
The frequently-omniscient Future Met Wiki has recently vouchsafed a few morsels about upcoming Met seasons.
The Metropolitan Opera announced that Diane Zola has been appointed the company’s new Assistant General Manager, Artistic, replacing the late Robert Rattray.
The new cast at the Met suggested an alliterative retitling of Lucia di Lammermoor was needed—perhaps Lost Loonies in Love or its Italian equivalent?
STEMdiva status
Ahead of a special boozy, bawdy Valentine’s Day concert, artistic director of Opera Lafayette Patrick Quigley speaks with soprano Maya Kherani about her journey from MIT to rising American Baroque star.
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.