Blissfully astray
It’s mad! It’s gay! It’s Michael Fabiano singing “Come un bel dì di maggio” from Andrea Chénier!
Up stares, down stares
Ahead of tomorrow’s Live in HD, Michael Steinberg talks Leonore, Salome, and the “endemic misogyny” of Claus Guth‘s new production
Sexual orientalization
An impressive cast blurs binaries as John Adams‘s ambitious Antony and Cleopatra arrives at the Met
Talk of the Town
A favorite Donizetti performance from Lawrence Brownlee
The thing that inspires me about Pavarotti’s performance here is that this is the piece within the opera that everyone in the audience is waiting to hear.
Broadcast / Live Chat
Salome
A live broadcast from New York
Mitridate, re di Ponto
Philippe Jaroussky conducts a performance recorded last month in Montpellier featuring Levy Sekgapane
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Anna Paquin cries at the opera to the Barcarolle from Tales of Hoffmann (Renée Fleming and Susan Graham)
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One of the most striking uses of opera in television appears in HBO’s The Leftovers.
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Yannick Nézet-Séguin leads an epic Wagner opera concert
Yannick leads The Philadelphia Orchestra, superstars Nina Stemme and Stuart Skelton, and world-class singers in a rare concert performance that reveals every detail and nuance of this richly harmonic score. Experience the passion and cold-hearted revenge of this scandalous opera. Get tickets now!
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I’m cheating by choosing TV over a movie, but I can’t not pick the Hamlet episode of Gilligan’s Island.
Chris’s Cache looks forward to next month’s Boston Early Music Festival with a comprehensive introduction to German Baroque featuring Sandrine Piau, Jennifer Larmore, and Joan Sutherland
Christopher Corwin on three stylish sopranos delighting audiences live in New York and on recording in a trio of new releases.
It’s a total fraud, but I have always loved Maytime‘s “Csaritza” a fake “MGM” opera based on themes from Tchaikovsky‘s 5th symphony.
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Pick a little, talk a little
Following the successful launch of the new regular feature The Talk of the Town in January, the team at the box is inviting contributions for a new quarter of operatic potpourri.
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Hunding, of Die Walküre notoriety, is the most misunderstood character in opera.
A brutal, chilling, gory final scene leading to a triumphant and goose bumps inducing final moments.
And a more recent live recording, this time from London featuring Sondra Radvanovsky and SeokJong Baek
Zubin Mehta conducts a classic broadcast from 1966 featuring Birgit Nilsson, Franco Corelli, Mirella Freni, and Bonaldo Giaiotti
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“Ebben, ne andro lontana” sung by Wihelmenia Wiggins Fernandez in Diva is a gorgeous woman in a beautiful dress singing a wonderful area in a legitimate concert venue. Great singing in my favorite French film.
parterre box presents for your comparing pleasure excerpts of three Italian sopranos trying their (poker) hands at Puccini’s Minnie: Carmen Giannatasio, Chiara Isotton, and Anna Pirozzi
Watching Fitzcarraldo at a very young age obviously turned me into a baby opera queen.
Bass-baritone Nicholas Brownlee is the winner of the $50,000 2025 Richard Tucker Award
An uneven new cast can’t dim the glow of Richard Eyre‘s incisive Le nozze di Figaro at the Met
