RIGOLETTO

It’s a big season at the Met for tenor Jonathan Tetelman—born in Chile, raised in New Jersey—and he’s taking every advantage of it. He’s come to town with a reputation as a Puccini specialist (not that there’s anything wrong with that). How does he feel about that? “Well, I basically built my voice on Puccini repertoire. I’ve taken it as a gift because he’s a great writer for my voice.” His debut at the Met in March was in LA RONDINE but he’s looking forward to showing off more of his dramatic ...

The Riverside Opera Company presents PoPera 2023, a fusion of Broadway and opera classics accompanied by a full orchestra.  This concert will feature a cast of ROC's award-winning singers performing popular Opera and Broadway favorites....

An historic recording of golden age tenor Richard Tucker singing “Sound an Alarm” from Handel’s JUDAS MACCABEUS” set the tone for the Richard Tucker Music Foundation’s Gala concert at Carnegie Hall. There was wonderful singing ahead of us—but of a certain kind. Like many other classical organizations, the Tucker Foundation, has found that, as Charles Dickens said in “A Tale of Two Cities,” “It was the best of times, the worst of times.” The “best” is for the quality of the singers that the foun...

The famed playwright and wit George S. Kaufman once said, “Satire is what closes on Saturday night.” One can only imagine what Kaufman--whose many credits include YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU, as well as the source of Sondheim’s MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG, which is circling Broadway for a return this fall--would have had to say about satiric operas. CRISPINO E LA COMARE (CRISPINO AND THE FAIRY GODMOTHER), a lively and lightweight 1850 comic piece that was was happily rescued from obscurity this week by...

In an opera filled with gorgeous music, it’s hard to beat the end of LA BOHEME’s Act One, with the trifecta of arias about young love. If only tragedy and sadness weren’t going to catch up with the central pair, Mimi and Rodolfo, and their friends, in the succeeding three “tales from the Bohemian life” (as the work’s source material was called). But wait. Director Yuval Sharon to the rescue, with a version that just finished a successful run at Opera Philadelphia, playing out the story in revers...

​​​​​​​Ivo van Hove, the Tony Award–winning director of Broadway's A View from the Bridge, makes a major Met debut with Mozart's Don Giovanni (May 5–June 2), re-setting the familiar tale of deceit and damnation in an abstract architectural landscape and shining a light into the work's dark corners....

The Met presents the winners of the 2023 Metropolitan Opera Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition: tenor Anthony León, mezzo-soprano Natalie Lewis, soprano Teresa Perrotta, mezzo-soprano Sarah Saturnino, bass-baritone Christian Simmons, and soprano Meredith Wohlgemuth. ...

The Met’s new production of Richard Wagner’s LOHENGRIN showcases startlingly good singing from tenor Piotr Beczala in the title role, supported ably and nobly by soprano Tamara Wilson’s Elsa, bass-baritone Evgeny Nikitin’s Telramund and bass Gunther Groissbock’s King Heinrich. And soprano Christine Goerke’s evil Ortrud nearly steals the show. With the Met’s orchestra and chorus in glorious form, led by music director Yannick Nezet-Seguin in the pit, the performance made you want to scream and ye...