Pierre Monteux‘s career defies time.
The vivacious MANON! at Heartbeat Opera makes a strong case for the return of opera in translation.
I had the pleasure of attending Manon starring Lisette Oropesa and Benjamin Bernheim at Opernhaus Zürich this past October.
Ahead of the return of Louise to the Opéra National de Lyon, Parterre Box features Elsa Dreisig in a much more famous French opera.
Grand Tier Grab Bag features a complete performance of Ernest Chausson‘s Poème de l’amour et de la mer ahead of a particular year for both its soloist and conductor.
Christof Loy‘s Louise in Aix-en-Provence scratches at the urban– and operatic– unconscious
Mady Mesplé’s voice has, sadly, become an acquired taste.
As of late, the Bay Area has been blessed with a few high-wattage, high-profile recitals as if to compensate for the chilly temperatures and gloomy weather. Roughly a month after Lise Davidsen made an ebullient debut at Cal Performances, the Bay Area welcomed French soprano Natalie Dessay last Saturday.
Patrick Mack looks back on “a great, nay, historic evening,” Renata Scotto‘s 1981 performance of Il trittico, now newly available on Met Opera on Demand.
While everyone tries to figure out what on earth Strauss and Hofmannsthal are up to in Die Frau ohne Schatten, now playing at the Met, Chris’s Cache offers a later, simpler, shorter Strauss with three live broadcasts of his “bucolic tragedy” Daphne.
Washington Concert Opera returned on November 24th for its first show of the 2024-2025 season with a production of Puccini’s Manon Lescaut, another (relative) rarity from the composer following last year’s season-closing presentation of La rondine.
It surprises even me how some operas have eluded me in live performance even after lo, these many years. One of them is Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette.
The Richard Tucker Foundation Gala has always been a big annual celebration of the voice with an emphasis on big-voiced singers in big repertoire (not much Wagner usually, though…). Like so many reliable operatic institutions it has struggled for survival after the pandemic.
Les Contes d’Hoffmann is something of a puzzle in which some of the pieces are missing and others been altered to fit since Offenbach died before he could complete and revise the work.
She can’t put her foot on the gas the way she used to but there’s still plenty of fuel in that tank.
parterre box is excited to present again Mike Richter’s collection of recordings of Rose Ader along with this biographical tribute in honor of a significant artist whose Jewish identity perhaps prevented her from achieving the renown she deserved
Franco Bonisolli from age 28 to 33 in complete operas by Mozart, Cimarosa, Donizetti and Massenet.
On this day in 1937 soprano Bidu Sayão made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Manon.
For me, Fedora is the perfect opera
On this day in 2017, Clémentine Margaine made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Carmen.
A double bill (with a choral intermezzo) that just finished four nights’ run at the Manhattan School of Music is a delight, musically whimsical and reminiscent, wittily and colorfully staged.
The pandemic had different effects on different people.
These are my findings and opinions (and I welcome rebuttals)!
The New York City Opera has become an elusive “now you see it, now you don’t” presence in the New York opera scene since the departure of main sponsor and chairman of the board Roy G. Niederhoffer in 2019.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
×
Sign up for Parterre’s free newsletter.
Exclusive opera reviews, commentary, and top reads
delivered to your email weekly…ish.