My impression was of a very fine singer performing a role that was slightly too large for him.
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.
La Cieca hears that the Metropolitan Opera will perform “La Marseillaise” before this afternoon’s performance of Tosca.
Always look for the helpers.
Olga Peretyatko has officially left the chorus.
Clemency tends to get a bad rap these days, as polities demand swift action by leaders whose mandates to govern are violently threatened by “terrorists.”
What would you do if I asked you to take a old, faded version of Puccini’s score for La Bohème and fill in the unreadable parts with a mélange of disco, kabarett, and Alban Berg?
Heaven temporarily relocated to the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées Sunday evening for a concert performance of Rossini’s revered but rarely heard Semiramide.
And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith… I am nothing.”
Paris can be a lot to handle, but this week it was a lot to Handel.
“There it is! The Castel Sant’ Angelo!”
Cecilia Bartoli, the revered, ebullient, and unique mezzo-soprano, does not like to fly in airplanes. Yet she managed to journey to St. Petersburg, Russia.
“With radiant looks, we shall depart this world,” sing Konstanze and Belmonte near the end of Mozart’s exotic yet charming opera Singspiel Die Entführung aus dem Serail.
Three nights, three concert halls, and three incredibly diverse programmes.
I just arrived back from Stella di Napoli’s.
Having completed her season of Giulio Cesare in Paris, Natalie Dessay next takes on Lucia di Lammermoor in New York. A glimpse of the soprano’s Handelian chops and perhaps a hint of her current vocal estate, after the jump.
UPDATE: Dessay has “just now” confirmed she will go on for tonight’s performance, which begins in about 15 minutes.
