On this day in 1965 Montserrat Caballé and Sherrill Milnes made their Metropolitan Opera debuts in Faust.
On this day in 1953 the Metropolitan Opera opened its season with a new production of Gounod’s Faust.
After putting a hiatus on their awards in 2020 and 2021 (for reasons that are all too well-known to all of us), the Richard Tucker Foundation Gala returned on Sunday evening November 13 honoring soprano Angel Blue the 2022 Award winner.
The main reason to see this revival is Benjamin Bernheim’s Duca.
On this day in 1973 the Metropolitan Opera presented the company premiere of Les Troyens.
Beverly Sills and Renée Fleming perform 30 years apart the same work with the same orchestra in the same venue!
To celebrate Valerie Masterson‘s turning 85 tomorrow, Trove Thursday offers a second annual birthday salute to the English soprano.
It’s nice to see Sony Classical backing a serious operatic soprano and not some crossover refugee from Britain’s Got Talent or another syrupy Christmas album from the world’s reigning Heldentenor.
Why is so twinkling, tuneful a score so little known?
Trove Thursday offers a nearly forgotten 19th century opera with a most marvelous name: Le Roi d’Ys by Éduoard Lalo featuring a superb French cast led by Alain Vanzo, Andrea Guiot, Jane Rhodes and Robert Massard.
Steve adored puzzles, solving them and creating them, so it makes you wonder that this one continued to fester—was that so few of his songs attained the rank of “standard.”
Concerts at Wolf Trap, mixed bags in more ways than one, provided fleeting glimpses of the old normal as moments of frisson mingled with more familiar monotony.
Who’s been hiding tenor Benjamin Bernheim from me all this time?
The lovely English soprano Valerie Masterson turns 84 today, prompting Trove Thursday to present her in a pair of her specialties.
On this day in 1951 soprano Victoria de los Angeles made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Marguerite.
Saturday marks the centenary of Julius Rudel’s birth which Trove Thursday celebrates with Le Coq d’or, Faust and Ariodante, a triple-bill showcasing his impressive versatility, featuring Beverly Sills and Norman Treigle, two of the most important artists he nurtured during his leadership of the New York City Opera.
Next month in Bergamo Plácido Domingo takes on his zillionth—and possibly final—new role, so Trove Thursday previews it by returning to the same venue 50 years earlier for Donizetti’s Belisario with Leyla Gencer and Renato Bruson, a real baritone as its titular hero.
On this day in 1951 soprano Victoria de los Angeles made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Marguerite.
Today’s Trove Thursday was originally scheduled for February 27, which would have been Mirella Freni’s 85th birthday, but instead we remember today the beloved soprano who passed away this past weekend in Puccini.
When soprano Yihan Duan started to sing her aria, you could feel an almost electric charge that something special was happening.
“Trove Thursday” offers Offenbach’s irreverent La Belle Hélène featuring the beauteous Véronique Gens.
“Who are you? Who do you want to be?” The search for one’s identity is explored in American composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer’s brand new opera If I Were You.
Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Die Tote Stadt in a 1967 Vienna broadcast appropriately featuring three American stars: John Alexander, Marilyn Zschau, and George London.
To mark Beverly Sills’s 90th birthday (May 25, 1929) “Trove Thursday” offers the late diva’s acclaimed Massenet heroine opposite her ideal Des Grieux, Alain Vanzo.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
Sign up for our free Newsletter.
Support Parterre Box
Donate to keep opera's liveliest publication free and independent. No paywalls, no institutional backing, no bootlicking.
Get our free newsletter
Opera's top reads delivered to your email weekly…ish.
Join over 100k readers.
The best opera magazine on the web.
Reviews, breaking news, critical essays, and brainrot commentary on opera from those demented enough to love it.
Essentials
Copyright © 2026 Parterre Box.
All rights reserved.
Registration or use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms & Conditions and our Privacy Policy. Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information.
Sign up for Parterre’s free newsletter.
Exclusive opera reviews, commentary, and top reads
delivered to your email weekly…ish.