Our Own JJ was only semi-amused.
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.
Our Own JJ crunches the numbers at the Met and LoftOpera in the New York Observer.
Met press office: Salvatore Cordella will sing Edgardo in this evening’s performance of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, replacing Joseph Calleja, who is ill.
As you may have heard, cher public, Joseph Calleja canceled last night’s Lucia performance at the Met after the first act. So… well, see the headline above.
“The Met’s revival of Verdi’s Ernani Friday night was every inch a tragic opera, though without being grand in any way. Its grisliest calamity was not the one the composer devised but rather one the production’s star, Plácido Domingo, brought on himself.”
As the Deutsche Grammophon producer for the 1972 Metropolitan Opera Carmen recording, I was delighted to read Patrick Mack’s review of its recent re-release on a surround-sound/stereo CD set.
The Metropolitan Opera yesterday afternoon was an uncommonly cozy place, as the auditorium was packed to the rafters with friends and family members of the nine National Council Audition Finalists.
“’They’re young… they’re in love… and they kill people’ goes the tagline for the 1968 film Bonnie and Clyde, but the slogan could apply almost as well to the outlaw pair at the center of the Metropolitan Opera’s white-hot revival of Massenet’s Manon.”
Zeljko Lucic has withdrawn from his spring Met engagements due to illness.
That much-anticipated and much-feared “exposé” about Peter Gelb and the Met? Almost completely rehash.
Our Own JJ‘s take on the Massenet will not appear until next week, but for now you are invited to make do with Zachary Woolfe‘s rave in the New York Times.
“It was the chilliest opening night at the Met in years on Monday—barely 15 degrees when the curtain went up on the company premiere of La Donna del Lago.“
The Met announces its 2015-2016 season tomorrow at 1:00 PM, cher public, and La Cieca knows you will all be here to discuss and dissect
Ellen Douglas finds herself in Act II of Rossini’s La Donna del Lago in the far from unusual operatic position of having her love claimed by two impassioned tenors in the bel canto version of a macho drag race.
James Levine turns 72 this year. Even though his health has improved considerably in the past year and he may continue to conduct for a decade or more, it seems inevitable that he will step down as the Met’s Music Director sometime in the next few years to assume the role of Conductor Laureate.
It’s that time of the year when the Met does its season announcement, cher public.
“If Mozart had only had the sense to write Don Giovanni in a… single-performer format, last Wednesday’s revival at the Met would have been one for the ages.
A sharp-eyed parterrian reports a poster of some sort (perhaps protesting Anna Netrebko and Valery Gergiev?) has somehow been affixed to the wall of the Met lobby at balcony level during tonight’s performance of Iolanta/Bluebeard’s Castle.
Mariusz Trelinski will direct Tristan und Isolde for Metropolitan Opera in a production that will premiere there on opening night 2016.
“Don’t bother with The Loft or The Boy Next Door: the most spine-chilling thriller currently playing isn’t on the screen of your local multiplex but on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera.”
Andriana Chuchman will sing the role of Valencienne in this season’s April and May performances of Lehár’s The Merry Widow.
The Met’s planned premiere of Iolanta/Bluebeard’s Castle was cancelled due to the Great Blizzard That Wasn’t.
I expected something lovely, but what I beheld was nothing short of magnificent.
At what moment does a “rising star” become simply a “star”?
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.
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.