Last night, the Met opened the 2013-14 season with a handsome, fairly conservative new production of Eugene Onegin by Deborah Warner that replaces the handsome, fairly conservative one by Robert Carsen. (The trend is clear.)
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.
Vanity project or not, these albums present a sensitive and talented artist showing off two little-seen sides of himself.
La Cieca hears that the opening night of La Scala’s 2013 season will feature a new production of La traviata starring Diana Damrau and Piotr Beczala, directed by… no, not Franco Zeffirelli, but Dmitri Tcherniakov.
A Dutch-speaking parterrian has graciously translated the interview with Piotr Beczala that’s been causing such a foofaraw lately.
So, Piotr Beczala (left) has gone and blabbed to Luister, which is some sort of Dutch glossy classical music magazine…
One quick way to warm up: Watching tenor heartthrob Roberto Alagna.
La Cieca predicts you won’t be seeing any puritans at the Met next season, except of course for the ones who slouch around during intermission hissing, “You call that a trill?”
Quoth the Met press office: “Piotr Beczala will sing the Duke in Verdi’s Rigoletto on Thursday, January 27, replacing Joseph Calleja who is ill.”
Anna Netrebko and Piotr Beczala are seen (briefly) in this clip from Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta, as produced at Baden-Baden.
