La Monnaie’s flamboyantly busy new production of Benvenuto Cellini reads more burlesque than Berlioz.
Die Entführung aus dem Serail boldly goes where no opera has gone before at Pacific Opera Project.
Iván Fischer‘s Mahler 3 with the Budapest Festival Orchestra at Carnegie Hall is memorable but crude, sometimes exhilarating and often tedious.
A chic production of Violanta at the Deutshce Oper Berlin continues the Korngold craze on the other side of the Atlantic.
Das Wunder der Heliane fuses sex with the sacred at a simmering performance at the Opéra National du Rhin.
The vivacious MANON! at Heartbeat Opera makes a strong case for the return of opera in translation.
Simon Boccanegra has never felt as foreboding or prophetic as it did at a recent performance at La Fenice.
A stark, sweltering performance of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk shocks the Komische Oper Berlin.
With Siegfried, the directorial vision of the Paris Opera‘s Ring cycle finally takes root.
Ponchielli goes east with mixed results in I Lituani.
Old pros Gregory Kunde and Pier Luigi Pizzi anchor a new staging of Stiffelio co-produced by three theaters in Emilia-Romagna.
Salome sweeps in like a storm at the Lyric Opera of Chicago.
Franz Welser-Möst leads a rigorous, if emotionally staid, performance of Verdi‘s Requiem at Carnegie Hall.
A Strauss rarity receives a ravishing concert performance at Seattle Opera.
Lise Davidsen‘s first Isolde is only one of the highlights of Tristan und Isolde at the Liceu in Barcelona.
A classic German fairytale gets a modern update at the Staatsoper Berlin.
The 20th anniversary revival of Richard Foreman and Michael Gordon‘s What to Wear at the PROTOTYPE Festival showcases a fabulous ensemble.
Esa-Pekka Salonen and The Los Angeles Philharmonic serve a feast for all five senses.
Two recent Paminas feature in concerts at Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall.
The oddball pairing of Bernie Williams and Jonathan Tetelman doesn’t quite knock it out of the park at Carnegie Hall.
Sarah Kirkland Snider’s Hildegard gives the Middle Ages the Bridgerton treatment at the Prototype Festival.
A pairing of rarities makes for an inspired evening with the Brooklyn Art Song Society.
A high-drama Vanessa by the Boston Symphony Orchestra offers something to believe in.
Sir Simon Rattle and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra strike (almost) all the right notes in their new recording of Mozart’s Idomeneo.
Tell us: What’s your favorite Verdi performance?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
