A recent conversation with a friend who has loved Die Frau ohne Schatten for twice as long as I have been alive revealed that we both had some unresolved questions about the plot.

Il trovatore may be famous for its melodramatic plot and unlikely mistaken identities, but surely even Verdi and Cammarano couldn’t have imagined the chaos of a performance featuring two Manricos and two Leonoras.

This archly traditional production of La bohème was a little shaky on opening night. It nevertheless had a full complement of sterling individual performances to take us on home.

After an uneven gala performance of Tosca on Tuesday, I’m not sure what the Met means by “celebrating Puccini.”

Ainadamar functions on two levels: as a defiant dance against fascist totalitarianism and as an exaltation of the diva.

Rare is the revival of Il trovatore that boasts five first-rate singers, and such an occasion should be treasured. And so, at the Met last Saturday, it was.

Ainadamar never quite found its identity between the two poles of conceptual and concrete.

It’s not so much that I hated the Met Opera’s Grounded. I’m just not convinced that it should have been an opera.

Rigoletto is the perfect opera. The story is straightforward and powerful; none of the action occurs backstage or between scenes or twenty-seven years before curtain rise; and the ethical anvil lands not once but twice, on the title character singing, “La maledizione!” The curse!