Sir David McVicar’s inept and dreary new production of Bellini’s Norma proved to be more satisfying than it had been on opening night when it returned to the Met Friday evening thanks to its new leading ladies Angela Meade and Jamie Barton
Psychology is encoded in the composer’s vocal lines more than his librettist’s words.
Nico Muhly has set himself the task of presenting Winston Graham’s elusive heroine Marnie on the operatic stage.
“Semiramide—a better opera than this dude expected!”
Lyric Opera of Chicago’s spectacularly colorful and glitzy new production of The Pearl Fishers opened on Sunday.
Vincenzo Bellini’s La Straniera was presented at George Washington University’s dreary Lisner Hall on Sunday.
It’s a fairly traditional post-Patrice-Chereau Ring, set during the Industrial Revolution.
It is not easy for an opera company to follow a spectacular production of La Traviata with Massenet’s Manon.
Whatever its flaws, La finta giardinera is indeed a wise rep choice for grad students eager to cut their teeth.
C-major has made available the first DVD/Blu-ray of Franco Faccio’s Amleto.
Could Barbara Hannigan be Joni Mitchell’s classical counterpart?
A dozen women or more talk and sing about all sort of important and exciting things, with “a man” near the bottom of their list of priorities.
A wonderfully committed Ailyn Pérez and Gerald Finley at Saturday afternoon’s revival abetted by Emmanuel Villaume’s passionate conducting converted me to a Thaïs believer.
In the seventies and eighties Dominick Argento (who turned ninety this year) was one of the most oft-performed of American opera composers.
I’ve always believed that Follies, like life, should be relentless and inescapable.
What if you could time travel back to the first run of Giuseppe Verdi’s first great success Nabucco?
Flotow’s Martha, a work of 1847 that was popular around the world for a hundred years.
The second DVD/Blu-ray with Plácido Domingo as Verdi’s other beleaguered Doge, Francesco in I due Foscari.
Washington National Opera’s lukewarm Alcina, unthreateningly misguided in both its musical and theatrical values, made little impact.
Madama Butterfly remains fascinating because of its complexity.
The second installment of Lyric’s Ring Cycle proved an evening of glorious singing, moving drama, great conducting and orchestral playing.
Flashes of excitement and genuine pathos lit up City Opera’s production of Dolores Claiborne!
At yesterday’s recital at the Morgan Library, Leah Crocetto sang as her encore Kern and Hammerstein’s “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man.”
Just because one can write an opera based on a film, does this necessarily indicate that one should?
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.
