“…a perfect marriage of text and music, creating a series of tableau-like scenes, as if Paul’s story is being related through a series of exquisitely posed still photographs…”
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.
“…the Met’s brand new production of Die Fledermaus, which premiered on New Year’s Eve, is overproduced, undersung and interminable, less a holiday entertainment than a checklist of opera-making skills the company can’t seem to master.”
Our Own JJ (not pictured) counts down his 10 favorite New York opera performances of 2013 in the New York Observer.
How, then, to explain the perplexing performance last Friday night of Falstaff, Mr. Levine’s first new production since his return?
Our Own JJ takes on an old frame (Der Rosenkavalier) and a new (Eugene Onegin) in his latest review for the New York Observer.
“Opera isn’t all about the music: On the most basic level, it’s a grotesquely expensive form of entertainment.”
Our Own JJ surveys the first week of the Met’s season (Eugene Onegin, Cosi fan tutte, The Nose, Norma) for the New York Observer.
Our Own JJ debuts in the pages of the New York Observer.
“Alden Drops the Ballo: His Milquetoast Take on Verdi’s Classic Fizzles at the Met”
The scribe is Zachary Woolfe and the powderkeg topic du jour is Anna Netrebko‘s mid-scene breaking of character.
Briefly, according to Zachary Woolfe: “No one came.” More elaboration, plus speculation on “What That Means,” in the New York Observer. And for those of you with a taste for hash, the subject is revisited as well in the New York Times.
“After a 15-year collaboration that catapulted Renée Fleming from just another plush-voiced soprano to a glamorous, genre-crossing household name, the singer is parting ways with legendary publicist Mary Lou Falcone.” [New York Observer]
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.
