Like the hero of Parsifal, who finds the Holy Grail after a lifetime of frustrated wandering, the Met’s audience was finally rewarded for its patience.
The Met took a gamble on a new production of Rigoletto Monday night—but, dramatically at least, the show crapped out.
In a winter rich with splashy debuts, Friday’s performance of Le Comte Ory introduced a 27-year-old South African charmer who may well be the Met’s next big star.
If war is hell, then Soldier Songs should rank somewhere around “purgatory.”
A wayward bouquet conked Kristine Opolais on her noggin during the ovation Friday night in La Rondine—but that was the only mishap in the Latvian soprano’s spectacular Met debut.
One quick way to warm up: Watching tenor heartthrob Roberto Alagna.
True, Joyce DiDonato’s Mary spat out those fighting words in a tangy chest voice, but it was hard to believe she meant them.
The Trojan Horse seemed like a great idea—that is, until it led to disaster.
“The courtesan’s entourage included dancing girls in filmy harem pants and bedazzled Afro wigs, and the hunky chorus boys pranced about in velour leggings, codpieces and nipple ornaments.”
Imagine if someone left Vermeer’s masterpiece “Girl With a Pearl Earring” out in the rain.
Did the ancient Egyptians invent chest waxing?
After an uneven start to the season, the Met brought its A game Friday to a superb revival of Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito.
In art, less is more — at least most of the time.
Last week’s freak nor’easter set the tone for Thursday’s chilly new production of Un Ballo in Maschera at the Met.
The battle of the sexes ended in an upset the other night in Le Nozze di Figaro.
“When the cross-dressing dude is the gifted singer Jeffery Roberson, and the opera is Menotti’s spellbinding The Medium, the result is prime musical melodrama.”
“Like the Shakespeare play it’s based on, Thomas Adès’ opera The Tempest is set on an enchanted island.”
So meandering and ragged a reading would be alarming at a first rehearsal; for a first night, it was a scandal.
“Two generations of gypsy women dominated the first weekend of the Met’s new season.”
“Considering one of the season’s star singers is a plus-size female impersonator, opera this fall is anything but a drag.”
Like New Yorkers, opera tends to flee the city in summer.
Sometimes an obscure opera is revived, and everyone hails a lost masterpiece.
“Scientist, lover, gambler, unwed mother — the 1700s French intellectual Émilie du Châtelet was all these and more.”
“About the only good thing that can be said for New York City Opera’s Orpheus, which opened Saturday night, is that it made the rest of the company’s feeble season seem scintillating by comparison.”
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.
