Those who want a rethought Lucia to allow the heroine more sense of agency will be especially confounded at Laurent Pelly’s reading.
This Sony Classical set of live performances covers a golden quarter century in the singing and staging of Wagner. Birgit Nilsson shared it with many other legends, and many of them appear on these discs.
Soprano Patricia Racette is superb in La Voix Humaine, a work that she makes absolutely her own.
Soprano Ashley Marie Robillard and mezzo Siena Licht Miller evoke a journey to Paris, Venice, Berlin, and London.
It would be hard to imagine a more apt and poignant metaphor for the ambitious O18 Festival than the world premiere of Lembit Beecher and Hannah Moscovitch’s Sky on Swings.
In Hatuey, composer Frank London and librettist Elise Thoron have created something that crosses boundaries from cabaret romance to flashback historical pageant to revolutionary thriller.
The career of our beloved Renée Fleming deserves to continue… by whatever means necessary.
Lightning struck again here when, after a wait of 39 years, San Francisco Opera unveiled a new production of Donizetti’s Roberto Devereux.
San Francisco Opera opened their 2018-19 Season Friday with a double bill of Italian verismo operas, Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci, which made a welcome return to War Memorial Opera House after 15 years.
The Stars of Lyric Opera weren’t under the stars last night, prevented by a persistent cloud bank, but they nonetheless provided a stirring evening of music in Chicago’s Millennium Park.
Orfeo’s latest edition is a 1978 performance of Lucia di Lammermoor with a very estimable cast that on its surface may seem a tad mundane but the extensive liner notes (with performance photos) tell the story of why it held such magic.
Sunday, August 26, marked the inaugural performance for the newly-created The Claude Heater Foundation with a concert performance of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde in the Herbst Theatre.
Tanglewood may bring the classical music crowd to Lenox, but for opera, it’s all about neighboring Pittsfield, Mass.
The Lamplighters Music Theatre opened their 66th season in SF last Saturday with triumphant performance of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance.
Salieri’s La Cifra (“The Cipher”) played all over Europe for 20 years, in several translations (German, Spanish). Then, like many a worthy work, it was forgotten.
Of all Handel’s oratorios, Semele begs most to be staged.
“Fleming does not have the acting skills to convince as a hearty clam-shack proprietress…”
I was overjoyed by the coincidence that Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival would be presenting Façade.
The theme was “Lyrics by Shakespeare.”
Last weekend marked the opening night for West Edge Opera: Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande.
This past weekend was a busy one for operas in San Francisco (and Bay Area).
To heck with Bayreuth and Salzburg, Glimmerglass and Santa Fe as Rosa Feola sang Mozart at Lincoln Center Friday night and I wouldn’t have been anywhere else!
Bard cultish Summerscape series continues to test our esoteric limits with Demon, Anton Rubinstein’s little-known opera about a demon who hankers for a Georgian princess.
Broadway’s new Head Over Heels is anything but under committed; it’s a show with an irresistibly fun spirit and an infallibly good heart.
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.
