Professional Reviews

Flora WillsonThe Guardian · Jul 2026

“Gerald Barry’s take on Wilde’s comedy is even wittier and zanier in Jack Furness’s hyperactive staging – complete with a grand piano on stilts, a herd of cows and a kangaroo that meets a grisly end”

Mark FisherThe Guardian · Jul 2026

“A celebration of the cartoonist’s sexual awakening and queer identity as well as an investigation of darker family dynamics, this soulful show wears its heart on its sleeve”

OperaWireOperaWire · Jul 2026

“There are operas that survive on the strength of their plot, and then there are those that survive because the music transforms the improbable into the inevitable. “Samson et Dalila” belongs decidedly to the latter camp. Saint-Saëns fashioned a score of extraordinary sensuality around a drama whose biblical certainties had long ceased to compel. Production Details Argentine director Damián Szifron, whose 2014 film “Relatos salvajes” was nominated for the “Palme d’Or” at Ca”

OperaWireOperaWire · May 2026

“I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t again mention this year that opera should always be more about the music and the singing than the staging. Alas, I find myself having to break that promise after sitting through the revival of Richard Jones’s 2022 production of “Samson et Dalila” at the Royal Ballet and Opera. Given that composer Saint-Saëns intended it to be an oratorio, rather than a staged opera, it was always going to present problems for any di”

OperaWireOperaWire · Jul 2026

“Gaetano Donizetti’s “La Fille du Régiment,” first perfomed in 1840, was something of a near disaster. On opening night, the lead tenor was frequently off pitch and when it premiered in Italy, shortly after, it was labelled as “worthless” and closed after just six performances. Fortunately for Donizetti, (and everyone else), it quickly turned round and became a success. A significant part of its eventual success was down to why it also proved to be a re”

OperaWireOperaWire · Oct 2025

“When Gaetano Donizetti arrived in Paris in October 1838, he was already one of the great figures of bel canto. Yet what he sought in the French capital was professional stability and institutional recognition–something Italy had not always granted him. Within a few months he had conquered, along with the French language itself, the Parisian stage, dominating the billboards of the city’s leading theaters. In that feverish context of activity, Donize”

OperaWireOperaWire · Jul 2026

“Lucia di Lammermoor” remains one of the supreme achievements of Romantic opera, capable of transforming inner conflict into pure musical expression. Premiered at the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples in 1835, Gaetano Donizetti’s masterpiece transcends the conventional sentimental tragedy to offer one of the most complex female psychological portraits of the nineteenth century. Based on Walter Scott’s The Bride of Lammermoor (1819), the opera elevates this tragedy to an unprecedented psy”

Joshua BaroneThe New York Times · Jul 2026

“Tennessee Williams’s darkly operatic one-act play becomes a proper opera in a new adaptation by the composer Courtney Bryan.”

Mark FisherThe Guardian · Jul 2026

“Maureen Beattie leads a modern-dress version, which focuses on family dynamics rather than the decline of Shakespeare’s mighty ruler”

OperaWireOperaWire · Jul 2026

“Richard Wagner’s “Die Walküre” unfolds in a world governed by contracts, power structures, and inherited systems of control. Yet beneath its mythological surface lies a drama about the moment when those systems begin to fail. In John Fulljames’s production, presented at the Forest Opera in Sopot as a co-production of the Royal Danish Theatre and the Greek National Opera, that collapse felt strikingly contemporary. Opening the fourt”

OperaWireOperaWire · Jun 2026

“I had high expectations for this production, following the previous evening‘s “Das Rheingold,” as director Stefan Herheim had plenty of ideas for “The Ring‘s” first installment. Sadly, his ideas could not sustain the dramatic textures of “Die Walküre,” as it is replete with long narrative dialogues and less action. Herheim’s tools, the traveling refugees, the suitcases and, most of all, the concert grand piano and score of the opera, are ever present in th”

Arifa AkbarThe Guardian · Jul 2026

“The Eurovision star leads a glittery production of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s blockbuster but this booming show lacks context and clarity”

Houman BarekatThe New York Times · Jan 2024

“The Belgian director’s revival of “Jesus Christ Superstar” showcases some of his signature aesthetic techniques. But it’s an odd pairing.”

Cassie TongueThe Guardian · Jul 2026

“<strong>Sydney Theatre Company</strong><br>Reid elicits gasps as a charming priest suspected of having an inappropriate relationship with a child – but this production rarely lets us linger in discomfort”

James PoniewozikThe New York Times · Jun 2026

“After a run of dazzling and frustrating ambition, the series closes with a pared-down menu and a touch of sweetness.”

Mark LawsonThe Guardian · Jun 2026

“Hunger and TB, as much as imperialism, are triggers for the assassination that precipitated the first world war in Rajiv Joseph’s tragicomic reimagining of the plotters’ progress”

OperaWireOperaWire · Jun 2026

“The new production of Mozart’s “Die Entführung aus dem Serail” (“The Abduction from the Seraglio”) at Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, in coproduction with Opéra Grand Avignon and Insula Orchestra, attempts to philosophize the stereotypical bias and harm of Mozart’s farcical Singspiel about Orientalism. In the program notes Stage Director Florent Siaud explains, “The imaginary presence of the Orient is so fundamental to the structure”

Clive PagetThe Guardian · Jun 2026

“Spitalfields music festival opened, by chance, with this beautifully performed and dramatic revival of baroque cantatas by Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre”

OperaWireOperaWire · Jun 2026

“Trigger warning: discussions of sexual assault. The Atlanta Opera (TAO) has given us a new way to stage one of the 21st century’s most performed operas, Puccini’s “Turandot.” Premiering on 25 April 2026, the 100th anniversary of the work’s original premiere, the edits were light. The only significant changes were an excision of most of Franco Alfano’s completion of Act three, and moving Turandot’s monologue “In questa reggia” to follow Liù’s death. Before we discu”

Clive PagetThe Guardian · Jun 2026

“A concert performance in an orchestral reduction of Puccini’s colossal final opera was stylishly led by conductor Naomi Woo with José de Eça’s Calaf heading a strong cast”

OperaWireOperaWire · Jun 2026

“The Wiener Staatsoper’s “Il Trittico” (seen June 21) was a frustrating experience due to the disparity between the excellent singers and the mediocrity of the staging. “Il Trittico” is one of Puccini’s best works both musically and dramatically. Tatjana Gürbaca’s production does not present Puccini’s three one-act operas as a sampler of contrasting styles–one slice of verismo noir, one serving of devotional melodrama, one comic dessert–but as a single”

OperaWireOperaWire · May 2026

“Music Director and Conductor Gianandrea Noseda of the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) took to Carnegie Hall’s infamous podium on Sunday, May 3, 2026 for an enlightening and entertaining evening featuring Giacomo Puccini’s “Il trittico.” The all-star cast included soprano Erika Grimaldi, soprano Meryl Dominguez, mezzo-soprano Agnieszka Rehlis, tenor Hakeem Henderson, tenor Gregory Kunde, baritone Roman Burdenko and the Washington Chorus with direct”

Lyndsey WinshipThe Guardian · Jun 2026

“Molina says she wants a show that never finishes – this one is endlessly thrilling and surprising”

OperaWireOperaWire · Jun 2026

“Richard Wagner wrote the libretto of “Tannhäuser” drawing on medieval German mythology, although its protagonist was probably inspired by a real person who lived in the thirteenth century. Mythology functions as a mechanism of psychological externalization: it takes the abstract, often chaotic dynamics of the human subconscious—our conflicting impulses, fears, and cultural values—and projects them into tangible narratives, transforming internal psychological crises into e”

OperaWireOperaWire · May 2026

“According to a diary entry by Richard Wagner’s wife Cosima, in January 1883 – three weeks before his death – the composer thought he still owed his “Tannhäuser” to the world. To his mind, this “große romantische Oper,” first performed in Dresden in 1845, had never acquired a definitive form. The Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb has owed “Tannhäuser” to its audience since October 1931, when the final performance of the 1930 production took place. In all”

Emma JohnThe Guardian · Jun 2026

“Frank swings into the West End with a swaggering turn from Joel Harper-Jackson and plenty of style yet the script is flat”

OperaWireOperaWire · Jun 2026

“At the Princeton Festival’s June 12 “Madama Butterfly” staged at Morven—the former governor’s mansion in Princeton, New Jersey—the Cio-Cio-San the audience watched was not the Cio-Cio-San it heard. The headliner, Toni Marie Palmertree, sidelined by a vocal infection, acted the role onstage while Brenna Markey sang it amplified from behind the set through speakers. Ironically, the staging presented two stories at once: the one written by Puccini and an allegory of today’s America. Pre”

OperaWireOperaWire · Jan 2026

“The Metropolitan Opera is in the midst of a revival of Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” in the acclaimed production by Anthony Minghella. The opera has one of the most complex soprano roles in the repertory, a role that requires stamina as well as vocal agility to shift from lyrical lines to intense dramatic passages. Luckily for this revival the company has brought in one of the leading Puccini sopranos in the world, Ailyn Pérez. Her performance was beyond”

Clive PagetThe Guardian · Jun 2026

“David Alden’s blackly comic Kafkaesque production has a strong cast whose lively performances were not always matched by the Early Opera Company in the pit”

Curtis RogersOpera Today · Jun 2026

“If Edward Said had written Orientalism today, then David Alden’s production of Handel’s Giulio Cesare for the Grange Festival could be cited as Exhibit A for evidence of the West’s condescending attitude to the Middle East. It’s true that Putin’s overawing tactics are satirised in Caesar and Ptolemy’s (Tolomeo) conference during Caesar’s aria of suspicion ‘Va tacito’, which is staged as a game of musical chairs. As ruler of Egypt, Ptolemy presides at one end of a r”

Arifa AkbarThe Guardian · Jun 2026

“With its gorgeous music, dance and costumes, this production is a sure summer blockbuster that avoids the problematic elements of Shakespeare’s play”

OperaWireOperaWire · Jun 2026

“After a month-long closure for renovation works, the Latvian National Opera reopened its doors shortly before the end of the summer season with Puccini’s “La Bohème.” For this return to the stage, the National Opera presented Laura Groza’s production, which reimagines the opera in a dystopian future through a visual language that may recall Blade Runner (1982). Colors and lights abound in a reality that finds the protagonists of Pucci”

OperaWireOperaWire · Apr 2026

“I’ve seen “La Bohème” many times, which means I usually know within a few minutes how it’s going to go. Puccini doesn’t ask for permission to rip your heart out; an unrelenting sense of tragedy is the hallmark of his work. At some point, the opera either grabs you, or it doesn’t, and when it doesn’t, you sit there thinking, okay… why isn’t this hitting me? Put another way: why am I not crying? The Feeling That Didn’t Spread That’s where I was during the Met”

Erica JealThe Guardian · Jun 2026

“Alice gets a musical-theatre belter, the ‘Drink Me’ Bottle performs soprano acrobatics and the Caterpillar smokes his hookah like Audrey Hepburn”

Clive PagetThe Guardian · Jun 2026

“With its aquatic opening, magic tricks and grand procession across a rainbow bridge, Charlie Edwards’s production manages to remain clear-sighted despite modest budgets”

OperaWireOperaWire · Jun 2026

“Stefan Herheim’s take on “The Ring” promises to be an interesting one: original, irreverential and, most of all, not trying to shock for the sake of it. This is my impression based on “The Ring’s” first installment. The imagery and the cultural references are approachable and familiar to the average German operagoer: Loge, who dominates this performance, is portrayed as Mephisto, Alberich as Batman’s Joker, Froh as Liberace, and Mime is dressed”

OperaWireOperaWire · Jun 2026

“Arguably the most heavyweight highlight of the entire festival, this performance of Händel’s “Ariodante” assembled a stellar cast that uniquely included two laureates of the prestigious Halle Handel Prize, Magdalena Kožená and Andrea Marcon. Adding to the evening’s historical significance was the rare opportunity to hear the 1735 London version ending. However, the acoustic condition of Concert Hall Ulrichskirche posed a formidable challeng”

OperaWireOperaWire · Jun 2026

“Following a very disappointing production of Mozart’s “Die Entführung aus dem Serail” the day before, the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées presented a one-night-only concert version of Handel’s “Ariodante” on June 7, conducted by Andrea Marcon. To begin with, it must be acknowledged that the La Cetra Barockorchester Basel performed Handel’s highly melodious, harmonious, and expressive score very well. A sense of joy in performing this work even seemed to emerge at”

OperaWireOperaWire · Jun 2026

“At the heart of “Romeo and Juliet” lies an archetypal story rooted in antiquity, Ovid’s tale of Pyramus and Thisbe from the “Metamorphoses.” A fatal misunderstanding, a false report of death, and a double suicide beside a tomb: Shakespeare transferred this ancient mechanism of tragedy onto the stage, making youth itself hostage to the feuds of an older world. When Charles Gounod turned to the story in 1867, Europe was living through a very different age. Paris, transforme”

OperaWireOperaWire · Jun 2026

“Teatro Real presented a new production of Gounod’s “Roméo et Juliette,” with Nadine Sierra and Javier Camarena as the “star-cross’d lovers” under the expert baton of Carlo Rizzi. It is a coproduction with Paris Opera and that helps make sense of the sets, which include the famous marble staircase of Garnier’s temple to Parisian opera. After plague doctors, wearing the infamous bird-beaked masks, had collected dead bodies from the street, the chorus appeared for the first time,”

Clive PagetThe Guardian · Jun 2026

“Director John Caird and conductor Laurence Cummings bring Monteverdi back to the Chiltern Hills with polished, festive inclusivity”

Laura Collins-HughesThe New York Times · Jun 2026

“Billy Porter and Wayne Brady make a tender pair in Robert O’Hara’s revival of the Harvey Fierstein-Jerry Herman musical farce.”

A.J. GoldmannThe New York Times · Jan 2023

“The vivid characters and the infectious melodies of the 1983 musical prove remarkably durable in Barrie Kosky’s madcap production at Komische Oper Berlin.”

OperaWireOperaWire · Jun 2026

“The 2026 Händel-Festspiele presented a unique double-feature of Handel’s breakout 1711 masterpiece, “Rinaldo.” By showcasing two radically different formats—traditional Italian puppetry and a metatheatrical re-contextualization at Oper Halle—the festival offered audiences a rare opportunity to compare two staged productions. While one production embraced the “primitive” theatrical tools of the past to unlock the opera’s raw, historical energy, the oth”

Arifa AkbarThe Guardian · Jun 2026

“Patrick Marber’s perplexing revival of the salesmen classic amps up the comedy and the performance of masculinity but veers into Bugsy Malone territory”

OperaWireOperaWire · Jun 2026

“The production of “Ercole amante” at the Paris Opera represents both an artistic and a musicological event. The opera was composed in 1707 by Antonia Bembo, never performed during her lifetime and long presumed lost until it resurfaced in 1937 at the Bibliothèque nationale de France. Its rediscovery eventually led to a concert performance in Stuttgart in 2023, followed by a staged production later that year at the ODC Theater in San Francisco. The work now”

Alexandra CoghlanThe Guardian · Jun 2026

“Ryan Wigglesworth’s piano concerto, veering between tense, creepy and off-kilter, brought out the best in soloist Steven Osborne”

Flora WillsonThe Guardian · Jun 2026

“A visual whirlwind accompanies charismatic and stylish performances in William Kentridge’s new staging. In the pit, Jonathan Cohen and the OAE add light and shade”

OperaWireOperaWire · May 2026

“Leonardo García Alarcón has already established an impressive track record in early North Italian opera, with his acclaimed “Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria” at the 2024 Aix-en-Provence Festival and his masterful Cavalli’s “Pompeo Magno” at Bayreuth in 2025. His interpretation with Cappella Mediterranea and the Chœur de Chambre de Namur was imbued with the freshness and vitality of a sunrise; under his baton, this first great masterpiece”

Erica JealThe Guardian · Jun 2026

“This year’s Aldeburgh festival opened with a stripped-back concert staging by Rory Kinnear with Ryan Wigglesworth conducting the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra”

OperaWireOperaWire · May 2026

“Opera sings too much” provocatively declared a barely thirty-year-old Claude Debussy shortly before revolutionizing the concept of lyric theater in France with what would become his only operatic work: “Pelléas et Mélisande.” A work built upon silences, allusions, and a circular sense of time: a fable situated outside reality. The result was not what many had expected, as often happens with masterpieces, misunderstood in their own time. Contemp”

OperaWireOperaWire · Jun 2026

“Agamemnon! Agamemnon!” The words and tones rang in my ears still, as I emerged from the powerful rendering of San Francisco Opera’s Strauss and Hofmannsthal’s “Elektra.” The sunshine on the street did not turn it down. The 95 piece orchestra, conducted by San Francisco Orchestra Music Director, Eun Sun Kim, and the powerful voices of this ensemble cast, resonated into the June air, all the way home. Forty-five minutes later, they resounded as I fac”

OperaWireOperaWire · Dec 2025

“Richard Strauss’s one-act opera “Elektra” (1909), with a searing libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, stands as a monumental achievement in 20th-century music drama. A radical adaptation of Sophocles’ tragedy, it plunges the listener into the tormented psyche of Elektra, obsessed with avenging her father Agamemnon’s murder by her mother, Klytämnestra, with the help of her lover Aegisth. Strauss’s score is an orchestral tour de force of unprecedented density and d”

Helen ShawThe New York Times · Jun 2026

“For the Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park, the director Saheem Ali presents a strangely low-energy version of the tragedy.”

Arifa AkbarThe Guardian · Mar 2026

“Young stars perfectly encapsulate the uncompromising nature of first love in Robert Icke’s production”

OperaWireOperaWire · Jun 2026

“The idea of this abridged “Les Contes d’Hoffmann” (seen June 5) may alarm some opera lovers, yet this two-hour, intermission-free version proved surprisingly convincing. The cuts were mostly judicious, streamlining secondary material without seriously damaging the dramatic flow, though the absence of the Venetian septet “Hélas! mon cœur s’égare encore!” remained a real loss. Production Details In Philipp Himmelmann’s imaginative staging, Hoffmann be”

Alexandra CoghlanThe Guardian · Jun 2026

“Tom Morris’s staged take on Mahler’s first symphony is valiantly performed by Stephanie Childress and Sinfonia Smith Square, but the result feels more like R&D than a finished product”

OperaWireOperaWire · Jun 2026

“La Cenerentola,” which premiered in Rome in 1817, was famously composed by Gioachino Rossini in record time — legend has it in just three weeks — and remains one of the finest examples of opera buffa in his oeuvre. Alongside its comic situations and eccentric characters, the score contains an undercurrent of melancholy and pathos that earned it the designation of dramma giocoso. La Cenerentola: Humanity Without Magic The story is based on Perrault’s f”

OperaWireOperaWire · Jan 2026

“Rossini’s “La Cenerentola” (1817) is quite different from the familiar children’s tale most of us grew up with. Librettist Jacopo Ferretti (1784-1852) opted for a more realistic Italian view of the fairy tale. His Cinderella is bereft of fairy godmother, magic carriage or glass slippers. Some attribute this rational approach to the Enlightenment, while others believe it is due to Italian culture. Mediterranean children’s tales traditionally inculcate valor, hono”

OperaWireOperaWire · Jun 2026

“San Francisco Opera kicked off its Summer Season with Rossini’s popular “Il Barbier di Siviglia.” With nine principals, 36 choristers, and eight dancers, the production was a revival of the 2013 staging by Emilio Sagi and is a co-production between San Francisco and Lithuanian National Opera. Sagi aimed to bring the past into the present, emphasizing this by moving progressively from black and white to color in sets by Llorenç Corbella. The production accomplished this, eliciting laughs fr”

OperaWireOperaWire · Jun 2026

“The company ABAO-Bilbao Opera closed its 2025-26 season with Giordano’s masterpiece “Andrea Chénier.” A luxury cast was led by opera star Michael Fabiano, alongside the rising Spanish soprano Saioa Hernández and the extraordinary baritone Juan Jesús Rodríguez. A co-production between ABAO and the Festival de Peralada, it presented beautiful and meaningful sets and costumes designed by Ricardo Sánchez Cuerda and Gabriella Salaverri, respectively. The staging maintained essential”

OperaWireOperaWire · Nov 2025

“Giordano’s “Andrea Chénier” is a glorious opera. Full of lush melodies, an elegant libretto, tense dramatic set pieces, and a propulsive pace it always baffles me how little attention it has gotten at the Metropolitan Opera in recent years. Since premiering in 1921, it has had 186 performances with the most recent prior to the 2025-26 season being in 2014. The reasons for its infrequency might seem obvious: the main three characters need to be”

Curtis RogersOpera Today · Jun 2026

“Sinéad O’Neill’s production of Handel’s Orlando, a study in love-induced derangement adapted from Ariosto’s famous poetic epic, paradoxically refrains from replicating the title character’s mania in any frantic choreography and is more engaging for it. Instead, it takes inspiration from the opera’s 18th century origins in the often leisurely, ritualised pace of its choreography and in the underlying style of the costumes. Psychoanalysis and Symbolism, even perha”

Erica JealThe Guardian · May 2026

“Sinéad O’Neill’s production is persuasive and Beth Taylor’s performace as Orlando is extraordinary in this tale of unrequited love, madness and magic”

OperaWireOperaWire · Jun 2026

“After a disappointing “Die Walküre” and a terrible “Siegfried,” my hopes for a stimulating ending of Stefan Herheim’s production of Deutsche Oper Berlin’s “Ring” were near non-existent. Fortunately, life is full of surprises; what started as a provocative, irreverent take on Wagner’s tetralogy in a first-rate staging of “Das Rheingold” and deteriorated into tedious attempts at humor marred by an obsession with denuding the entire cast down to their underga”

OperaWireOperaWire · Mar 2026

“(© Teatro alla Scala) A Wagnerian friend spoke of a dream where he is visited by the composer himself. Wagner tells him, “The entire Tetralogy is a stream of images, nothing more. I think back to that day by the Mediterranean when, in a dream, the melody of my Rhine-maidens that was to begin my entire Tetralogy came to me. And, too, “Götterdämmerung” is not truly the end of my Nibelungen cycle. You see, once Brünnhilde throws the cursed golden ring back into its true resting place wi”

Arifa AkbarThe Guardian · Jun 2026

“This stage version of Ian McEwan’s devastating class novel shows inspiring touches and the cast play adeptly, yet the tale’s emotional sweep feels underpowered”

Flora WillsonThe Guardian · Jun 2026

“A touring show was quite a challenge for the opera star’s first directorial gig, but dynamic singing, charismatic orchestral play and clever stage jokes pull it off brilliantly”

OperaWireOperaWire · Feb 2026

“Deutsche Oper am Rhein prides itself on having the largest permanent ensemble of soloists in the world. This is no exaggeration: the German opera house is renowned for maintaining one of the most substantial fixed ensembles internationally, with approximately 47 singers under permanent contract –excluding the chorus and its collaborations with two orchestras – thus covering the artistic needs of two different cities, Düsseldorf and Duisburg, and sustaining more than 280 per”

OperaWireOperaWire · Jun 2026

“Deutsche Oper’s Ring Cycle started promisingly with an original staging of “Das Rheingold,” with provocative ideas, irreverence and even humor. However, unfortunately it continued with a constant rehashing of ideas, which proved inadequate for the gigantic enterprise that is Wagner’s “Ring.” After a vocally satisfactory but scenically uninspired “Die Walküre,” matters deteriorated considerably on May 29 with the worst staging of “Siegfried” I have ever see”

OperaWireOperaWire · Apr 2026

“Despite the numerous positive accounts of Barrie Kosky’s “Siegfried” that gave me hope for a rich and nuanced performance, I found the singing, acting and stage design to be flat, unconvincing and shallow. As a devoted Wagnerite, I do not feel that most of the performers truly understood the vast musical work that they were performing. The quality of the cast’s performances did not feel worthy of being called world-class, and this severely inhibited”

Helen ShawThe New York Times · Jun 2026

“While the 1999 movie went for melodrama, this stage adaptation with songs by Aimee Mann honors the memoir’s coolly clinical prose.”

Richard LawsonThe Guardian · Jun 2026

“Susanna Kaysen’s retelling of her time in a psychiatric hospital in the 60s became an Oscar-winning movie in the 90s and now it’s an elegant, if limited, play”

Clive PagetThe Guardian · Jun 2026

“With a refreshingly organic approach, the US pianist and her string ensemble revitalise the modern minimalist master’s score for The Hours and his Tirol Concerto”

Arifa AkbarThe Guardian · Jun 2026

“Impeccable vocals and slick staging make for dazzling set pieces in a tame production that’s missing the emotional centre of the 1956 film”

OperaWireOperaWire · Jun 2026

“Anyone fortunate enough to have been present at La Monnaie for the world premiere of Iain Bell and Lydia Steier’s “Medusa” would have left the theater with little doubt that communing with the gods of Ancient Greece is something that should be avoided at all costs. To say that they are an egotistical, self-serving bunch of hedonists that views anyone or anything else as a mere plaything is an understatement. In this telling of the Medusa myth, the gods”

OperaWireOperaWire · Jun 2026

“The Frick Collection’s new Stephen A. Schwarzman Auditorium concert season 2025-26 featured the much anticipated debut of Les Talens Lyriques ensemble led by Christophe Rousset and world-renowned countertenor Key’mon W. Murrah on May 22, 2026. This final concert was well worth the wait and might just be my favorite collaboration of the year. Les Talens Lyriques Christophe Rousset’s love for Handel’s works began during his harpsi”

OperaWireOperaWire · Jun 2026

“A volatile world of sonic storms, earthquakes, and lightning flashes (forces of nature tightly bound to dangerous political subversion) was completely locked away when Jean-Philippe Rameau’s last opera, “Les Boréades,” was abruptly shelved in 1763. Paranoid of the libretto’s Masonic undercurrents, French royal censorship chose to suppress an extraordinary amount of musical energy. The score’s modern resurrection had to wait until the late 20th century”

OperaWireOperaWire · Jun 2026

“A dark chapter in Giuseppe Verdi’s life came to an end with the success of “Nabucodonosor” at La Scala in 1842. During the preceding decade, between 1832 and 1842, Verdi had been rejected by the Milan Conservatory; his sister Giuseppa died, followed by his daughter Virginia just fourteen months old, his son Icilio eighteen months old, and finally his wife Margherita Barezzi. Added to these personal tragedies was the failure of his first two opera”

Mark FisherThe Guardian · May 2026

“This stripped-down show with a maudlin set of songs makes for the most reluctant of musicals, but this is a production that has the confidence to be silent or stately”

Erica JealThe Guardian · May 2026

“The conductor, soon to finish an eight-year tenure at the helm of the Dutch orchestra, leaves the orchestra in good shape”

Joshua BaroneThe New York Times · Feb 2022

“Delayed by the pandemic in 2020, then again in January, the Philadelphia Orchestra brought a long-awaited Ninth Symphony to Carnegie Hall.”

Erica JealThe Guardian · May 2026

“Louisa Muller’s richly detailed production of Verdi’s tragedy is elevated by Madison Leonard’s magnetic Violetta and Douglas Boyd’s musical direction that reinvigorates the familiar score”

OperaWireOperaWire · May 2026

“The Metropolitan Opera presented this season’s “La Traviata” with a second cast on May 6th, 2026 for its 1,066th performance of Verdi’s masterpiece. Conductor Marco Armiliato led the cast of all-stars including soprano Ermonela Jaho as Violetta Valéry, Edyta Kulczak as Flora Bervoix, Jeongcheol Cha as Marques D’Obigny, Dwayne Croft as Baron Douphol (Graduate of the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program), Paul Corona as Dr. Grenvil, Sco”

Chris WiegandThe Guardian · May 2026

“There are drop-dead gorgeous designs and the performances are full of life but this off-kilter escapade has scattershot gags and unmemorable songs”

Clive PagetThe Guardian · May 2026

“Martin Lloyd-Evans’s credible production roots the action in time and place. Amanda Echalaz is a richly drawn and touching Minnie and conductor Matthew Kofi Waldren adds colour and drama”

OperaWireOperaWire · May 2026

“Premiered in 1863, “Les Pêcheurs de perles” is one of Georges Bizet’s earliest operas, composed more than a decade before his masterpiece “Carmen.” Set on the exoticized shores of ancient Ceylon, it combines lush lyricism with themes of friendship, desire, and betrayal. Though initially overshadowed by Bizet’s later success, the opera has gradually earned recognition for its brilliant orchestration and emotionally charg”

Chris WiegandThe Guardian · May 2026

“The late choreographer heightens Ophelia and Gertrude’s stories yet squanders some of the speeches in an intense hour”

OperaWireOperaWire · May 2026

“French operas of the nineteenth century were once among the most popular works in the repertoire, but in the last half century, they’ve fallen out of fashion. One reason is the loss of national singing schools, especially the French, in a now globalized opera world. Without an understanding of the French style, and without the required elegance and clear diction, for the audience these operas are a painful exercise in dated mannerisms or more commonly, sadly generic piece”

OperaWireOperaWire · Feb 2026

“I first heard Samoan tenor Pene Pati a year ago in Munich in “La bohème,” an opera I’ve seen so often that I make every effort to avoid it. But this time was different; I was completely disarmed by this beautiful lyric tenor’s voice, his charm and his authenticity. Endowed with brilliant high notes, a beautiful timbre, perfect diction, and most of all sincerity in his portrayal of Rodolfo. I thoroughly enjoyed the performance. I was almost reconciled with “La bohème”

Arifa AkbarThe Guardian · May 2026

“Prospero is reimagined as a conductor in this superbly orchestrated version of Shakespeare’s tragicomedy”

Arifa AkbarThe Guardian · Jan 2026

“Some spells are cast by this production, in which the director plays Prospero, but it also wearingly replays the same tricks”

OperaWireOperaWire · May 2026

“Carmen” is one of the most perfect operas in the repertoire. It features an inspired setting, a marvelous orchestration, spirited vocal parts, and most of all, intense drama. It was highly admired by no less than Gustav Mahler, who championed the work while Director of the Vienna Court Opera. It’s thought of as an indestructible work, a glorious stage success, no matter how it’s served: a mezzo or a soprano Carmen; spoken dialogue or sung recitatives; set in”

OperaWireOperaWire · Apr 2026

“(Ph. Rolando Paolo Guerzoni) An “immoral” woman who ends up stabbed by her lover was by no means the image that the Parisian audience attending the premiere of “Carmen” at the Opéra-Comique in 1875 had in mind as a proposal from a 37-year-old Georges Bizet. It is said that no one is a prophet in their own land: in France, “Carmen’s” debut passed almost without notice, and it was in its Austrian premiere that the character of the Andalusian gypsy finally began”

Alexandra CoghlanThe Guardian · May 2026

“The Monteverdi Choir’s account of Purcell’s opera was delivered with devastating clarity, but it was somewhat smothered beneath a 200ft ship’s hull”

Rian EvansThe Guardian · Apr 2026

“Created in just a week with a cast of rising stars and amateur singers, Mid Wales Opera’s production – and its heart-wrenching ending – is a remarkable achievement”

Chris WiegandThe Guardian · May 2026

“The Drag Race star brings nuance to the vocals and has a hoot with a frisky script but this bio-drama is too limited and ultimately cramps her style”

Flora WillsonThe Guardian · May 2026

“Caitlin Gotimer’s Tosca goes from 0-60 in mere moments while the London Philharmonic unlock the barely contained violence in Ted Huffman’s long-awaited exceptional staging”

Tim ByrneThe Guardian · May 2026

“Ryan Calais Cameron’s play dramatises a real meeting the film star had in the 1950s that became a moral reckoning”

Clive PagetThe Guardian · May 2026

“Captured live in concert performances, Fabio Luisi’s clear-sighted command and strong orchestral playing make this Wagner set frequently impressive, with Mark Delavan an authorative Wotan”

Kate WyverThe Guardian · May 2026

“Lindsay Posner’s precise revival flies highest in its most intense moments of beastliness as a psychiatrist sets about ridding a teenage boy of his demons”

Arifa AkbarThe Guardian · May 2026

“Forgoing Brecht’s usual distanciation, Anna Jordan’s new translation and Michelle Terry’s lovable performance bring out the humanity of a woman doing what’s necessary to keep herself and her family alive”

OperaWireOperaWire · May 2026

“The Opéra National de Paris is in the midst of a revival of Robert Carson’s incredible production of “Rusalka.” Coming-of-Age The production itself is minimalist in its set design. The opening scene features a mirror effect with a bed hanging over the stage. On ground level, there’s a central pool and we see four figures asleep alongside it. Sleep becomes a major motif throughout the production. Sleep is both a literal manifestation of our consciousness’ ignorance t”

OperaWireOperaWire · May 2026

“If you have ever visited to the Suffolk seaside town of Aldeburgh, where Benjamin Britten lived, and which inspired his 1945 opera “Peter Grimes” – based on George Crabbe’s poem “The Borough” – then you will surely remember the remarkable views from the sea front: vast, empty skies, sunlight blazing on the water like a purifying fire, and a bleak, flat countryside, punctuated by marsh, inlet, and reedbed. “I am rooted here”, the eponymous (anti)hero of”

Erica JealThe Guardian · May 2026

“As the tormented fisherman, Allan Clayton currently has few rivals. He is matched by a superb cast in this gripping revival of Britten’s opera”

Joshua BaroneThe New York Times · May 2026

“El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego,” Gabriela Lena Frank and Nilo Cruz’s fantasy about two titans of Mexican art, arrives at the Metropolitan Opera.”

OperaWireOperaWire · May 2026

“On May 14, the Metropolitan Opera showcased the New York premiere of “El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego” by Gabriela Lena Frank and Nilo Cruz. The opera, which had its world premiere in 2022 at the San Diego Opera, has been a staple at many U.S. company’s over the past years including LA, San Francisco and Chicago. Now it was time for the Met to show the third Spanish-language opera in Peter Gelb’s tenure, and like the other two, “Flor”

Holly O'MahonyThe Guardian · May 2026

“This revival of the carnivorous plant caper showcases strong voices, incorporates playful designs and splits Audrey II in two”

Arifa AkbarThe Guardian · May 2026

“The dissolute aristocrats from 1895 remain sharply funny, and bitingly relevant, in this flamboyant new spin”

Rian EvansThe Guardian · May 2026

“Soloist Veronika Eberle brought sweet, pure tone tone to Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, with Jorg Widmann’s new cadenzas complementing the work perfectly. Music by George Benjamin and Strauss further revealed orchestra and conductor in their element”

OperaWireOperaWire · May 2026

“First performed in 1846, “La Damnation de Faust” remains one of Hector Berlioz’s most audacious and elusive works: neither fully opera nor oratorio, but a hybrid “dramatic legend” that defies conventional staging and genre. Drawing on Goehte’s “Faust” while filtering the story through Berlioz’s intensely Romantic imagination, the piece moves with feverish speed from pastoral lyricism to infernal spectacle, demanding considerable forces and emotional range from perf”

OperaWireOperaWire · Nov 2025

“From November 3 to 15, the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées presented Berlioz’s “La Damnation de Faust” with the Orchestre Les Siècle—formerly conducted by François-Xavier Roth and now under the baton of Jakob Lehmann—in a production by Silvia Costa. Staging is perhaps a big word, given the minimal effort that went into it. Whether in terms of set design, direction of the actors, or even simply costumes and props, the audience was left with little to sustain”

Mark FisherThe Guardian · May 2026

“Aside from a brief pre-shoot ‘discussion’, this take on Billy Wilder’s classic 1950 film has little to offer – despite some fine performances”

Mike HaleThe New York Times · May 2026

“The story of genius and jealousy, a major award winner onstage and on film, returns as a TV series starring Will Sharpe and Paul Bettany.”

Tim ByrneThe Guardian · May 2026

“Even among the notoriously thin plots of musicals, this one feels particularly underfed – though Natalie Bassingthwaighte does a reasonable job”

OperaWireOperaWire · May 2026

“Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote “La clemenza di Tito” in 1791, the year of his death, to celebrate the coronation of Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor, as King of Bohemia. The libretto, adapted from Metastasio, celebrates the Roman Emperor Tito as a magnanimous and forgiving ruler; this was particularly apt for the enlightened monarch Leopold, who governed through compromise and applied several principles of the Enlightenment, abolishing torture, confiscation of proper”

OperaWireOperaWire · Dec 2025

“Venice’s Teatro La Fenice opened its 2025-26 season with a new production of “La Clemenza di Tito,” widely considered to be the least popular of Mozart’s mature operas. Its premiere in 1791 at the Estates Theatre in Prague received a lukewarm reception, with the Empress herself complaining that “nearly all of us fell asleep.” Albert Einstein’s assessment was that Tito “is nothing but a mere puppet representing magnanimity”

Roslyn SulcasThe New York Times · May 2026

“In Akram Khan’s new full-length work for Royal Danish Ballet, Lady Macbeth is a pure-intentioned heroine.”

Mark FisherThe Guardian · Feb 2026

“In a stark modern staging, Mark Babych frames the tragedy as a story of ordinary lives spiralling into catastrophe”

OperaWireOperaWire · May 2026

“Some operas carry the weight of national myth—and that weight can obstruct a purely musical experience. Smetana’s “The Bartered Bride” is very much one of them. When it was first performed in Prague in 1866, the Czech nation had no state of its own, and this first opera in the Czech language became something far greater than entertainment or musical theatre: it was a declaration, a self-presentation to the world. Its exuberance, humor, peasant cunning,”

OperaWireOperaWire · Jan 2026

“Irish National Opera‘s (INO) recent tour of Smetana’s “The Bartered Bride” took in a number of small venues across Ireland that rarely, if ever, get featured in its normal schedule. Included were towns such as Birr, Monaghan and Manorhamilton, situated in the rural hinterlands, far distant from the Dublin metropolis and the smaller urban areas of Galway, Cork and Limerick. Presenting a fully staged opera that requires a large performance space, one”

Tim ByrneThe Guardian · May 2026

“<strong>Melbourne Theatre Company, Southbank Theatre<br></strong>While Alison Whyte is never less than compelling, director Mark Wilson encourages a buffoonery from the cast that is fatal to this play’s melancholic drift”

Miriam GillinsonThe Guardian · May 2026

“A spunky Helena and an inspired Puck elicit spontaneous cheers and laughter in Emily Lim’s generous, creative and clever show”

Miriam GillinsonThe Guardian · Apr 2026

“The Unicorn and RSC’s accessible adaptation is at its best in comic set pieces – even if the pared-down plot still feels cluttered”

Arifa AkbarThe Guardian · Apr 2026

“Two couples, both of whom have lost sons, meet in Fran Kranz’s unflinching look at restorative justice”

Jesse HassengerThe Guardian · Apr 2026

“Joel Schumacher’s much-loved movie gets a splashy stage transfer which might be technically impressive but the songs never come to life”

Helen Shaw and Sara KrulwichThe New York Times · Apr 2026

“A Broadway musical adaptation of the 1987 movie gets a lot of mileage from ’80s rocker aesthetics and over-the-top spectacle — until its second half.”

Juan A RamírezThe Guardian · Apr 2026

“Debbie Allen’s revival of the 1984 drama boasts a compelling cast, led by Taraji P Henson and Cedric the Entertainer, but too many notes are off”

Gabrielle FerrariThe New York Times · Apr 2026

“The soprano Barbara Hannigan, who also directed, is multitasking at the New York Philharmonic in a disturbingly resonant take on “La Voix Humaine.”

Arifa AkbarThe Guardian · Apr 2026

“A tremendous cast lifts what might have been a formulaic drama into a compelling examination of contested memory”

Richard LawsonThe Guardian · Apr 2026

“The 1973 cult favorite is back with a stacked cast, including Juliette Lewis, Luke Evans and Rachel Dratch, but only flashes of genuine fun”

Richard LawsonThe Guardian · Apr 2026

“A standout turn from Jessica Vosk, taking on the Bette Midler role, isn’t enough to turn a much-loved movie into a legitimate stage show”

Helen ShawThe New York Times · Apr 2026

“David Lindsay-Abaire’s comedy about a wealthy homeowners association thrown into disarray makes a case for the same social compact it skewers.”

Jesse HassengerThe Guardian · Apr 2026

“Rabbit Hole writer David Lindsay-Abaire takes on a list of modern American conflicts in a fun, if ultimately underdeveloped, comedy drama”

Arya RoshanianThe New York Times · Apr 2026

“A strong cast led by the soprano Asmik Grigorian lifts Deborah Warner’s production, which never quite convinces.”

Arifa AkbarThe Guardian · Apr 2026

“Yousef Sweid shows wit and charm as he tackles his divorce and custody battle, while the larger struggle closes in around him”

OperaWireOperaWire · Apr 2026

“Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin” is one of the most intimate experiences one can have at an opera house. It’s a story of regret that comes with throwing away the only people that ever loved you. It’s got some of the most heart-piercing music in the canon and an impeccable pacing throughout. It’s a work that almost plays itself. Which is why the Met Opera’s revival of Deborah Warner’s production is such a frustration. Despite a”

OperaWireOperaWire · Apr 2026

“While Tchaikovsky may be one of the most popular composers of the symphonic repertoire and certainly one of the great ballet composers, his operas have, arguably, not reached similar stature or popularity in the West. Commentator David Garrett canvasses some of the difficulties of conveying Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin” to non-Russian audiences in an essay on his website “Notes from the Garrett.” He wonders “whether there was something inaccessible about the Russia”

Jesse HassengerThe Guardian · Apr 2026

“Apple’s spoofy musical comedy series makes a natural leap to the stage but often struggles to bring much that feels new to the material”

Juan A RamírezThe Guardian · Apr 2026

“Rose Byrne and Kelli O’Hara are comic gems in a pitch-perfect revival that sparkles like champagne”

Lyndsey WinshipThe Guardian · Apr 2026

“Incredible physical facility is married to expressive lyricism in this triple bill by the Royal Ballet’s ever adventurous resident choreographer. You never know what’s coming next”

Lyndsey WinshipThe Guardian · Apr 2026

“Tap, waacking, jookin’, footwork and jit are among the street and club styles that come together as Michelle Dorrance showcases a startling array of forms and talent”

Richard LawsonThe Guardian · Apr 2026

“The Bear star and Don Cheadle are lost in a new take on David Auburn’s family drama but a standout performance from the two-time Tony winner does some heavy lifting”

Rian EvansThe Guardian · Apr 2026

“Jack Furness’s unconventional staging for Welsh National Opera sees the orchestra play up a storm under Tomáš Hanus in Wagner’s legend of the man condemned to sail the oceans for eternity”

OperaWireOperaWire · Mar 2026

“When Richard Wagner completed “Der fliegende Holländer” almost two centuries ago, he stood at a threshold in his artistic life. Within its turbulent orchestral sea there is already the sense of the psychological obsessions that would later culminate in “Tristan” and “The Ring.” The work’s themes —eternal wandering, obsessive love, redemption imagined or denied — are unusually adaptable to mo”

Richard LawsonThe Guardian · Apr 2026

“There’s a strong emotional pull to this fact-based story of injustice, but on stage it’s all a little too polite to truly soar”

OperaWireOperaWire · Apr 2026

“Four centuries after William Shakespeare imagined a night-time forest where desires dissolve into illusions, Benjamin Britten transformed that world into one of the most enigmatic operas of the 20th century. Now the work returns to the stage of Teatro Real in a new production by director Deborah Warner under the baton of conductor Ivor Bolton–a duo that has repeatedly shaped Britten’s sound at this theater. The premiere of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” took place in 1960, and in Britte”

Arifa AkbarThe Guardian · Apr 2026

“Twenty years since its West End debut, the sweet and subversive musical returns with a few tweaks and a lot of heart”

Flora WillsonThe Guardian · Apr 2026

“Directed with gangsterish overtones by Mark Ravenhill, the tempered musical weight of this lean production of the Strauss classic brings greater focus on the roles’ contrasting dramas”

OperaWireOperaWire · Jan 2026

“Salome” undoubtedly stands as one of the most significant works in the history of German opera. The elements Wagner outlined in his works reached Strauss as a direct torrent of influence, and it is precisely in “Salome” where Strauss finally finds—after “Guntram” and “Feuersnot”—a personal, absolute, and unmistakably original musical language. I have always perceived in “Salome” a spirit closely akin to the exoticism”

Giselle Au-Nhien NguyenThe Guardian · Apr 2026

“<strong>Arts Centre Melbourne, then touring Australia<br></strong>This candy coloured musical has a bombastic pop-rock score and great stage design, but it erases the grey that made Heathers such a strange and compelling film”

Adrian HortonThe Guardian · Apr 2026

“Arthur Miller’s 1949 autopsy of the American dream finds new urgency in a stripped-back production”

Mark FisherThe Guardian · Apr 2026

“Two prisoners escape their grim Buenos Aires jail into golden age fantasy sequences that elicit big belting showtunes from Anna-Jane Casey’s baddie”

Richard LawsonThe Guardian · Apr 2026

“After a disastrous 2019 movie, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s easily ridiculed 80s smash hit has now been transformed into something thrillingly new”

OperaWireOperaWire · Apr 2026

“The “Zürich Barock” Festival at the Zurich Opera House presents a rarity: “Scylla et Glaucus” by Jean-Marie Leclair, a composer best known for instrumental music, especially for the violin, which he himself played with great virtuosity. The opera premiered in 1746 and enjoyed moderate success, but soon disappeared from the repertoire. Its first modern performance took place in London in 1979, yet the work remains largely unknown despite its undeniable qual”

Helen Shaw and Sara KrulwichThe New York Times · Apr 2026

“For their 10th life, the cats strut and duckwalk in a reappraisal of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 1981 musical, which has shifted to the queer ballroom scene.”

OperaWireOperaWire · Apr 2026

“Trigger Warning: This review includes discussion of school shootings. If you walked up to Lincoln Center from Broadway on Monday evening, you might have seen a line of people dressed in white holding up images of people. Underneath the images were their names, who they were, and the senseless event that took their lives. Sandy Hook. Parkland. These are but two such events that carry major significance. According to K-12 School Shooting database there have alread”

Adrian HortonThe Guardian · Apr 2026

“Ehrenreich is electric alongside The Pitt’s Patrick Ball in this very 2008 send-up of the fallout from one disastrous blind date”

Arifa AkbarThe Guardian · Apr 2026

“Comedy infuses Winsome Pinnock’s disarming but ebullient drama about two Black academics who are given the job of authenticating the diaries of an enslaver”

OperaWireOperaWire · Apr 2026

“A week before Good Friday, the National Theatre in Prague premiered a “Parsifal” that seemed less a ritual of inherited faith than an inquiry into the architecture of knowledge itself. Richard Wagner’s final work–his self-styled Bühnenweihfestspiel of 1882–has always invited metaphysical inflection. In “Parsifal,” Richard Wagner distills a vast philosophical meditation into a deceptively simple narrative: A naïve young man, Parsifal, stumbles into”

OperaWireOperaWire · Nov 2025

“From the magic of those first ascending B flat minor motifs, to the shimmering chromatic closure, Wagner’s final masterwork “Parsifal” casts a spell of unspeakable radiance. A spell that can fail to materialize when directorial concept goes awry. The Nov. 2nd performance of the San Francisco Opera’s new production of “Parsifal” was an orchestral triumph, and a visual miasma. However well-meaning it was a conceptual failure from sta”

Arifa AkbarThe Guardian · Apr 2026

“<strong>National theatre, London</strong><br>A queenly Lesley Manville steals the show in this dark, rageful tale of seduction as contact sport”

Catherine LoveThe Guardian · Apr 2026

“Sparring lovers play a capricious game in Blanche McIntyre’s revival – but the cut and thrust is kept witty, rather than curdling into danger”

Catherine LoveThe Guardian · Feb 2026

“Amy Gavin’s production amps up the dangerous dance of desire and violence between these troubled ex-spouses but loses the delicate balance between comedy and malice”

OperaWireOperaWire · Mar 2026

“The title role of Verdi’s “Otello” is one of the hardest roles ever written for a tenor in the Italian repertoire. Luciano Pavarotti simply recorded it while Carlo Bergonzi (who was considered a Verdi expert) and Franco Corelli always refused to sing it. On the other hand, Plácido Domingo debuted the role when he was 34 years old, and though he was scarcely criticised for being too young and too lyrical, many critics did expect that this role would ruin his voice. Domingo went”

OperaWireOperaWire · Nov 2025

“From October 29 to November 9, the Strasbourg Opera will be performing Verdi’s “Otello.” As always with the Strasbourg Opera, the Filature in Mulhouse will be staging this production as well on, November 16 and 18. The staging has been given to the director Ted Huffman, who employs a highly effective minimalist approach, focusing the drama on the characters. Master lighting designer Bertrand Couderc makes particular use of lighting, with flashes for the in”

Lyndsey WinshipThe Guardian · Mar 2026

“Superbly cast, the dancer brings stratospheric levels of charisma to a rather pedestrian show driven by Cyndi Lauper’s songs”

OperaWireOperaWire · Mar 2026

“There’s a storm brewing…it’s going to get darker,” observes assassin Sparafucile. How right he is! Moments later, he’s stuffing the pure and innocent, murdered Gilda into a body bag downstairs while his sister is gyrating on top of the dastardly Duke of Mantua upstairs; pretty much as dark as it gets. ‘Manosphere’ and ‘Toxic Masculinity’ are the buzzwords of the moment, and there’s plenty of material in Oliver Mear’s production of Verdi’s”

Clive PagetThe Guardian · Mar 2026

“There is a touch of the Tony Sopranos about George Petean’s Rigoletto, in Oliver Mears’ 2021 staging that evokes a world of privilege, misogyny and abuse. Aida Garifullina is a convincing and elegant Gilda”

Jesse HassengerThe Guardian · Mar 2026

“A splashy new production inspired by the real-life 1970s bank robbery stars Jon Bernthal and Ebon Moss-Bachrach”

Arifa AkbarThe Guardian · Mar 2026

“A class on The Crucible unearths troubling parallels for a group of teen girls in Kimberly Belflower’s play set in the wake of the Weinstein scandal”

Erica JealThe Guardian · Mar 2026

“Natalie Abrahami and Michael Levine’s imaginative production is brilliantly creepy and insightful. A first-rate cast of adults and children do not put a foot wrong”

Chris WiegandThe Guardian · Mar 2026

“The musical-theatre megastars fall in and out of love, in opposing timelines, in a stirring production of Jason Robert Brown’s musical”

Clive PagetThe Guardian · Mar 2026

“Orpha Phelan’s fun but confusing staging for the London Handel festival aligns the opera’s characters with recognisable famous figures. Fine singers and players led by Laurence Cummings ensure consistent musical excellence”

Lucinda EverettThe Guardian · Mar 2026

“Carmel Owen’s ambitious musical follows the impressionist’s regrets back to his early adventures in art and his first marriage”

Arifa AkbarThe Guardian · Mar 2026

“Co-artistic director Tamara Harvey stages a well-acted production that never hits as hard as it should”

OperaWireOperaWire · Mar 2026

“Those accustomed to the grandeur of larger houses like the Metropolitan Opera might approach a performance at the Virginia Opera with moderated expectations, but the company proves such caution unnecessary. While the scale may be smaller and simpler, Virginia Opera consistently delivers excellent vocal talents and imaginative stagings that make the most of their admittedly limited budget. This season’s production of Giuseppe Verdi’s “Aida” is no exception. The production had r”

OperaWireOperaWire · Mar 2026

“On March 21, the Washington National Opera opened “The Crucible,” its second production of the spring season at the Lisner Auditorium. The Washington National Opera’s decision to showcase this work spotlights the importance of art’s resilience in times where where institutions like the John. F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts are being taken over by regimes and being used for propaganda. Revival For this staging, the company brought back Fran”

Clive PagetThe Guardian · Mar 2026

“Nineteenth-century verismo becomes 21st-century psychodrama, as English Touring Opera dramatise this tawdry tale of jealousy and violence with a keen eye for the dramatic image”

Mark LawsonThe Guardian · Mar 2026

“Director<strong> </strong>Kate Wasserberg emphasises the fantasy and supernatural elements of the poet’s ‘play for voices’ in an entertaining and inclusive production”

Arifa AkbarThe Guardian · Mar 2026

“Writers Nina and Moses Raine add comedy and raunch to Maxim Gorky’s satire of the holidaying elite”

Jesse HassengerThe Guardian · Mar 2026

“The hit one-man show about depression suffers from plain and often corny writing yet is saved by an exuberant turn from the Tony-winning Harry Potter star”

Lyndsey WinshipThe Guardian · Mar 2026

“Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s choreography keeps a tight hold on the narrative and the erotically charged pas de deux between the lovers packs real heat”

OperaWireOperaWire · Mar 2026

“In his book, “A New Philosophy of Opera,” director Yuval Sharon notes that “Tristan und Isolde,” alongside “Pelléas et Mélisande” are not only two of the most difficult operas to stage, but “seem like a losing proposition” for any director to take on. He reflects on how oftentimes, director’s attempt to “find physical form for what the music expresses” results in to more traditional staging approaches. The s”

OperaWireOperaWire · Feb 2026

“Tristan und Isolde” is a colossal work, not only for its length (five hours, including two 30-minute intermissions), or for the influence of the famous Tristan chord on Western music, but also for the symbolism it represents. Wagner was hugely influenced by Schopenhauer’s philosophy when he wrote this masterpiece, while conducting an affair with Mathilde, the wife of his benefactor, Swiss businessman Otto von Wesendonck. Arguably the apex of opera, “Tristan”

OperaWireOperaWire · Mar 2026

“I first heard Vasilisa Berzhanskaya as Rosina in a 2022 Florence production of “Il barbiere di Siviglia.” For the first time, I wasn’t sure if it was the standard version with a mezzo Rosina, or the less frequently performed soprano version. While the timbre was distinctly mezzo, the dazzling coloratura was more soprano than mezzo. Fast forward to the 2024-25 season. Berzhanskaya was Preziosilla in “La forza del destino,” the opening night opera of the Teatro alla Scala, a”

David JaysThe Guardian · Mar 2026

“Tracy-Ann Oberman stars in this absorbing and timely revival of Ryan Craig’s 2011 comic tragedy, set over one fraught evening”

Gia KourlasThe New York Times · Mar 2026

“American Ballet Theater opened a short spring season at Lincoln Center with a full-length work by Lar Lubovitch from 1997. Time hasn’t freshened it up.”

OperaWireOperaWire · Mar 2026

“On March 8, the Washington National Opera (WNO) presented its first opera, “Treemonisha,” after having broken ties with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. For the occasion, the company returned to Lisner Auditorium, the venue where it started 70 years ago and a noticeably smaller one when compared to the opera house at the Kennedy Center. As such, it was clear that this would be an adjustment for the WNO. Upon entering the space, however, it was safe to say that the”

Arifa AkbarThe Guardian · Mar 2026

“Jordan Fein’s revival finds hypnotic power in Miller’s 1994 play, as Pearl Chanda and Eli Gelb bring haunting emotional force to a story of paralysis and denial”

OperaWireOperaWire · Mar 2026

“Ponchielli’s masterpiece, “La Gioconda,” was presented at the Gran Teatre del Liceu with a double cast of stellar singers and a beautiful production. Production Details The sets by Étienne Pluss were beautiful and meaningful. The stage was surrounded by walls of stone and wooden beams. There were realistic elements for each scene, including a big marble staircase in the first act, a boat in the second, and chandeliers in the third. It was a very pleasant experience to be able to reco”

OperaWireOperaWire · Feb 2026

“Irish National Opera’s production of Janacek’s “The Cunning Little Vixen” proved to be a valid, yet commonplace, sentimental, child-centered reading, which unfortunately failed to delve below the surface narrative, although this was not the intention of its director, Sophie Motley. The Director’s Ideas Fail to Translate into Practice In her program notes, Motley explained that her aim was to portray the life cycle of the vixen so that her”

Mark FisherThe Guardian · Feb 2026

“Even the safety curtain has a morbid air in Dominic Hill’s post-apocalyptic staging of Beckett’s classic”

OperaWireOperaWire · Feb 2026

“Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie is not an opera house, yet it regularly presents high-calibre concert performances of opera and oratorio—projects that inevitably place artistic and operational pressure on the city’s Hamburg State Opera. This Bellini evening continued that pattern. With Ensemble Resonanz returning after their previous notable “Norma,” the hall again became a theatre of the imagination. In its enveloping acoustic, Vincenzo Bellini’s “I Capuleti e i”

OperaWireOperaWire · Feb 2026

“Luisa Miller” by Giuseppe Verdi is a tragic tale of love destroyed by social hierarchy and political intrigue. The young peasant Luisa Miller is in love with Rodolfo, who is in fact the son of the powerful nobleman Count Walter, though he has been living in disguise. Their relationship is opposed by Rodolfo’s father, who intends him to marry the Duchess Federica for political advantage, and by the scheming courtier Wurm, who desires Luisa for himself.”

Arifa AkbarThe Guardian · Feb 2026

“After a book, a film and a Ted Talk, William Kamkwamba’s heroically inventive response to floods, drought and starvation is now delivered with energetic songs and dancing”

Arifa AkbarThe Guardian · Feb 2026

“The Black Panther actor’s melding of social commentary and Shakespearean themes is sometimes opaque yet undeniably poetic”

Arifa AkbarThe Guardian · Feb 2026

“Deploying accents and wigs, the Wicked star takes on all Bram Stoker’s characters, but the atmosphere lacks the fever or diabolicism required”

OperaWireOperaWire · Feb 2026

“Though “Benvenuto Cellini” (1838) was Berlioz’s first opera, premiering five years before Wagner’s “Der fliegende Holländer” (1843), thirteen years before Verdi’s “Rigoletto” (1851), and two decades before Gounod’s “Faust” (1859), the work sounds positively avant-garde compared to contemporaneous works and even compared to those written long after it. The most astounding innovation was Berlioz’s use of syncopation, especially in his incredible “harmonious diss”

OperaWireOperaWire · Feb 2026

“Over the past three years, the Opéra de Monte-Carlo has presented a complete cycle of the Mozart–Da Ponte operas in semi-staged performances by the Wiener Staatsoper. The series began in 2023 with “Le Nozze di Figaro,” continued in 2024 with “Don Giovanni” and concluded on February 9, 2026, with “Così fan tutte.” When “Semi-Staged” Means Fully Staged All three visits by the Wiener Staatsoper were billed as semi-staged (mis en espace), with dramaturgy credited to Lis”

OperaWireOperaWire · Nov 2025

“During the Classical period, audiences entertained themselves with theatrical farces, literary comedies and other artistic forms that, besides amusing, also served as social critique. “Così fan tutte,” premiered in Vienna in 1790, is a direct heir to that tradition. Mozart’s work explores seduction, fidelity and the illusion of love. Its characters take part in a “social experiment” devised by Don Alfonso to test human nature and emotion”

OperaWireOperaWire · Feb 2026

“In recent years, Madrid’s Teatro Real has programmed many “operas in concert.” Sometimes they’re well-known, such as “Orfeo ed Euridice,” “Idomeneo,” or “Die Fledermaus” that I attended at the venerable theatre over the last three seasons. On occasion, they present more obscure works, such as Verdi’s early opera “I masnadieri”(1847). In the past, a touring production was employed, with conductor and cast performing in several European cities. For”

Cassie TongueThe Guardian · Feb 2026

“The 1985 play’s first run took place off-Broadway in the middle of the Aids crisis. Much has changed – but Dean Bryant’s production speaks to a new era of protest and unrest”

Arifa AkbarThe Guardian · Feb 2026

“William Nicholson’s take on CS Lewis’s marriage to an American divorcee should have you in bits but it fails to feel as eviscerating as it should”

OperaWireOperaWire · Feb 2026

“Lully’s “Atys” is said to have been Louis XIV’s favorite opera. Using a libretto by Philippe Quinault (1635-1688), “Atys” is based on the story of Attis from Ovid’s “Metamorphoses.” In the original story, Atys/Attis is a handsome Phrygian youth beloved by the goddess Cybèle. She demands his absolute fidelity but he betrays her with a nymph. As punishment, she drove him mad and he castrated himself under a pine tree. In Quinault’s libretto, the story is embellished, makin”

Arifa AkbarThe Guardian · Feb 2026

“A financier facing corruption charges is reunited with his son in this high-concept mishmash of screwball comedy and financial thriller”

OperaWireOperaWire · Feb 2026

“In 1968, as Buenos Aires was going through a difficult political and social period, Astor Piazzolla and Horacio Ferrer brought to life a work destined to defy any clear definition: “María de Buenos Aires.” It is neither a lyric opera in the traditional sense nor a simple tango show; rather, as its own creators defined it, it is an operita tanguera, suspended between poetry, urban ritual, and metaphysical nightmare. Curiously, the work adopts the structure of a”

OperaWireOperaWire · Jan 2026

“Editor’s Note by David Salazar, Editor-in Chief: A previous version of this review misrepresented the genders of two artists and mentioned that a trans performer in several roles was “cliché.” This is offensive, unacceptable, and should never have been published. We apologize for this and will work to ensure this never happens again. The review has been modified. With the opera house still undergoing renovations, Piazzola and Horatio Ferr”

OperaWireOperaWire · Feb 2026

“While the midsize southwestern German city of Stuttgart is not an international operatic centre like Berlin or Munich, it’s nonetheless important to opera’s history. It witnessed the world premieres of three major works: Strauss’s “Ariadne auf Naxos“ (1912); Zemlinsky’s “A Florentine Tragedy” (1917); and Philip Glass’s “Akhnaten” (1984), in addition to several operas by Carl Orff and Werner Egk. Its opera house is one of the country’s”

OperaWireOperaWire · Feb 2026

“The great collector of women arrived in Emilia-Romagna, specifically at the Teatro Municipale di Piacenza, before moving on to Modena, as part of a co-production between the two cities’ theaters. The scenic concept was devised by Andrea Bernard. A statement of his opens the program booklet, in which he explains that he has always considered Don Giovanni the least interesting character in the opera: not for lack of action, but for lack of”

Lucinda EverettThe Guardian · Feb 2026

“Japanese company Chiten abandon naturalism for rhythmic dialogue and highly stylised movements – but there is much invention to admire”

Arifa AkbarThe Guardian · Feb 2026

“Stuffed with knowledge and often regarded as the playwright’s finest work, this drama’s sheer cleverness gleams in an exuberant production”

OperaWireOperaWire · Feb 2026

“Freiburg Theater’s current production of John Adams’ “Doctor Atomic” is a must-see event! Even opera-goers who find contemporary works difficult or off-putting would struggle to deny the brilliance of this presentation. It succeeds on every level: musically, dramatically, visually and intellectually. And in doing so, confirmed the opera’s reputation as an early 21st century masterpiece. The opera is set in 1945 in the lead-up to the first t”

OperaWireOperaWire · Feb 2026

“On January 28, the Opéra de Monte-Carlo presented a rare semi-staged performance of Gluck’s “Orfeo ed Euridice” in the version he prepared in 1769 for Parma. Written for the wedding celebrations of Ferdinand, Duke of Parma, and Archduchess Maria Amalia of Austria, this revision substantially reworked the original 1762 Vienna score. Gluck compressed the opera’s three acts into a single, uninterrupted “Atto d’Orfeo,” which formed the final portion of the triple bill “Le feste d’Apollo.” The Parma”

Arifa AkbarThe Guardian · Feb 2026

“In a bloody, brilliant, full circle Rupert Goold bows out as artistic director of the Almeida with a timely revival of the musical he first staged here in 2013”

OperaWireOperaWire · Jan 2026

“Co-produced by the Opéra National de Normandie, where it was first staged, Francis Poulenc’s opera Les Dialogues des Carmélites (The Carmelites dialogs) is now being performed in Nancy from Jan. 25 to 31. This production is nearly a complete success. Tiphaine Raffier’s realistic staging lends rawness and extra humanity to certain scenes in the opera, such as the death of the Mother Superior, but this does not prevent her from creating certain tableaux”

Oussama ZahrThe New York Times · Jan 2023

“This revival of John Dexter’s production of “Dialogues des Carmélites” features a tightly knit cast led by the full-voiced soprano Ailyn Pérez.”

OperaWireOperaWire · Jan 2026

“Genova, Italy’s sixth largest city, where the story of “Simon Boccanegra” unfolds, is rarely featured in opera. Despite its glorious history and stunning monuments, it barely registers with tourists visiting Italy. Many know it as the birthplace of Christopher Columbus (1451‑1506) and as the origin city for the culinary magic of garlic, pine nuts, basil leaves and grated cheese, known as pesto. Yet, the blue jeans we wear were named after bleu de Gênes (Geno”

Arifa AkbarThe Guardian · Jan 2026

“Rosie Sheehy and Robert Aramayo excel as a couple reeling from an ultrasound scan in Luke Norris’s extraordinary play”

Arifa AkbarThe Guardian · Jan 2026

“Thornton Wilder’s classic American play is transposed for this company’s inaugural production. The result is heartfelt, though its emotional bite can seem uncertain”

OperaWireOperaWire · Jan 2026

“The seventeenth of Verdi’s twenty-six operas, “Il trovatore” (1853) is considered the archetypal senseless opera, thanks to its convoluted and highly implausible plot. So absurd is its premise that it was used in the Marx Brothers’ “A Night at the Opera” (1935) to elicit laughs. But despite this, “Il trovatore” has remained one of the most popular operas in the repertoire since its premiere. Implausible to the non-operatically incline”

Jesse HassengerThe Guardian · Jan 2026

“<strong>Samuel J Friedman Theatre, New York</strong>The White Lotus and Gilded Age actor takes on her real-life husband Tracy Letts’ 1996 thriller, which could have afforded some modern-day tweaks”

OperaWireOperaWire · Jan 2026

“Less is more! That was what Sandro Sequi did well in his traditional 1976 production of “I Puritani” at the Metropolitan Opera. Originally staged for Joan Sutherland, the production was a vehicle for the great divas of the Bel Canto repertoire. And while it was admittedly a product of its time, the last three times it was revived, each of the divas assigned to the production transformed the old-fashioned production into something modern, fresh and unpr”

OperaWireOperaWire · Dec 2025

“Although “I Puritani” is an Italian opera through and through, it was conceived in Paris, at the height of the grand opéra tradition. Bellini studied Meyerbeer and Halévy in great detail, noting in his personal papers certain orchestral “effects” he wished to emulate and others he intended to avoid. As a result, the score, especially in the third act, features orchestral passages unusually rich for him, with a climactic structure closer to Pari”

Chris WiegandThe Guardian · Jan 2026

“A revival of the Wicked composer’s 70s medieval-quest musical brings magic and joy but malevolence is missing”

Arifa AkbarThe Guardian · Jan 2026

“Comedy’s upper-class antics are transposed to 1920s Bath and bring a crowd-pleasing mix of anarchic spirit and silliness, though it slackens occasionally”

OperaWireOperaWire · Dec 2025

“Ernani” (1844), Verdi’s fifth opera, is possibly the finest of his early period. More than any of his preceding works, it marks a drastic change from bel canto operas of the time in two respects. Firstly, the libretto, until then of secondary importance, was pivotal, as bel canto was mostly about beautiful voices, especially the soprano’s. An astute man in tune with changing public taste, Verdi was aware that a decent play had a good chance o”

Tim ByrneThe Guardian · Dec 2025

“A few great performances can’t save a musical that fudges history and narrative stakes in service of sentiment and sparkle”

OperaWireOperaWire · Dec 2025

“When “Stiffelio” premiered in 1850, Giuseppe Verdi was going through a period of transition: he had left behind his so-called “galley years” yet had not fully reached artistic maturity. It is precisely in this phase that “Stiffelio” emerged, revealing itself as a bold experiment: deeply modern in its approach to human conflict and, at the same time, dangerously provocative for the moral and political climate of the Italian Risorgimento. The confl”

OperaWireOperaWire · Dec 2025

“Every year, the Met Opera ushers in the holidays with its abridged, English-language production of Mozart’s “The Magic Flute,” delighting children and adults alike. This season was no exception. If anything, the 90-minute performance offered a welcome reprieve from a world that seems to have lost its bearings—and, oddly, slid back toward the superstition and ignorance Mozart’s fairy tale confronted when it premiered in 1791, at the height of the”

Kate WyverThe Guardian · Dec 2025

“In Priestley’s shenanigan-filled 1934 comedy, three couples discover they are not married after all – meaning the men lose authority and the women gain freedoms”

OperaWireOperaWire · Dec 2025

“This Christmas season, the Strasbourg Opera is staging Engelbert Humperdinck’s opera “Hänsel und Gretel.” Based on the eponymous fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm, which premiered in Weimar on December 23 in 1893, it is the ultimate Christmas opera. Exciting Production Details The production, featured December 7 to 17, gets off to a wonderful start. It is set in present day and in a poor wasteland, where the children Hansel and Gretel try to distract themselv”

Arifa AkbarThe Guardian · Dec 2025

“Arriving from Broadway with much fanfare, Cole Escola’s play about Mary Todd Lincoln is loaded with obvious jokes and squanders the talents of its cast”

OperaWireOperaWire · Dec 2025

“Gian Carlo Menotti’s “Amahl and the Night Visitors” has become a staple of the Christmas holiday ever since it premiered on TV in 1951. While it was the first opera specifically composed for television, the work has since become a holiday staple for many of the major opera houses across the United States of America. This year, for the first time, Lincoln Center Theater is presenting the work in association with the Metropolitan Opera, hoping to bring”

Arifa AkbarThe Guardian · Dec 2025

“A north London Jewish family share a meal – and heated arguments – in this complex and courageous drama”

Kate WyverThe Guardian · Dec 2025

“With expert direction and eye-catching stagecraft, the tension is ramped up in a new play inspired by the film franchise”

Miriam GillinsonThe Guardian · Dec 2025

“Little Bulb’s ingenious show for children features sword fights, crooning mice and some cheesy gags”

OperaWireOperaWire · Dec 2025

“In his notes on the work, Erin Helyard, conductor of Pinchgut Opera’s recent “Messiah,” states that there are “about 10 identifiably different versions of ‘Messiah’ that Händel appears to have approved, developed, or tolerated following its composition in 1741.” “Why perform the first version,” he asked, posing a question by which to judge this, Pinchgut’s final offering for 2025, at Sydney’s City Recital Hall, Angel Place. Of Helyard’s two ans”

Arifa AkbarThe Guardian · Dec 2025

“Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s fairytale adventure follows its archetypal characters into real-world emotion, brilliantly drawn and sung<br>”

OperaWireOperaWire · Dec 2025

“Rome’s Teatro dell’Opera opened its season with “Lohengrin,” last heard at the Teatro Costanzi a half century ago, in 1975. Once Wagner’s most popular opera in this country, it fell out of favor with the new dogma of presenting operas in their original language. Between 1933 and 1966, it was performed on average every other season. Then it appeared once in 1975 under the baton of the legendary Giuseppe Patanè. “Lohengrin” is back in the Italian c”

Zachary WoolfeThe New York Times · Feb 2023

“The tenor Piotr Beczala sings with uncanny serenity and command in the title role of Wagner’s opera, directed by François Girard with little subtlety.”

OperaWireOperaWire · Dec 2025

“On December 2, 2025, the Metropolitan Opera delivered a ray of sunshine with a jubilant opening of Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess.” Last seen on the Met stage in their 2021 season, this year’s run featured new and returning artists who all came together for something as uplifting as it was exciting. In regard to James Robinson’s production, many of my thoughts remain from my previous experience. The rather minimal set does well to evoke what it needs to of the surroundings of”

OperaWireOperaWire · Dec 2025

“Is it a wise decision to perform two independent works by the same composer on consecutive nights, using a very similar cast, the same stage director, the same basic set, similar or in some cases the same costumes with the same musical director and orchestra? Well, this is exactly what the Ravenna Festival decided to do for its stagings of Händel’s “Orlando” and “Alcina,” and it did not work at all! Pizzi’s Undifferentiated, Static Stagin”

OperaWireOperaWire · Dec 2025

“​ Florida Grand Opera (FGO) opened its 85th season with a heartfelt reminder that opera can be community-driven, emotional, musically accessible, and relevant to the present moment. The atrium was pleasantly crowded before the opening performance of “Silent Night” by Kevin Puts and Mark Campbell; a wide spectrum of glamorous attendees sipped drinks from the bar and watched singers from FGO’s CANTO training program as they serenaded everyone with operatic hits. Ambassadors from the Br”

OperaWireOperaWire · Nov 2025

“For the November installment of the Ravenna Festival, it was decided to present a Händel trilogy, comprising two fully staged operas, “Orlando” and “Alcina,” and a concert performance of his oratorio “The Messiah.” First up was the composer’s 1733 composition, “Orlando,” written to a libretto by Carlo Sigismondo Capece, which premiered at London’s King’s Theatre and ran for ten performances. Like many of Hände”

OperaWireOperaWire · Nov 2025

“The beloved Chinese hero, Monkey, landed in San Francisco Friday night, complete with an entourage of dancers, singers, acrobats, and antics that came from an ancient story revisited, along with video-games and comics, among others. In the Lobby, before the performance, a group of young drummers from Grant High School, Sacramento and dancers from the Chinese American International School with drums, gongs, and bells, performed to bring us right into the field of Chinese performance art. It was m”

OperaWireOperaWire · Nov 2025

“The Wexford Factory Academy is a program offering young singers the opportunity to take part in workshops, masterclasses and performances in the weeks leading up to and during the festival. The highlight of the program is a fully staged production on the festival’s main stage, in which all the roles are performed by the Factory singers. The opera selected for this year’s festival was Rossini’s 1825 comic opera “Il Viaggio a Reims,” which, with”

OperaWireOperaWire · Nov 2025

“It’s been 11 years since the Metropolitan Opera presented Strauss’ “Arabella,” one of the composer’s most beautiful and charming works, and his last collaboration with Hofmannsthal. The work has been championed by many great sopranos and baritones throughout history. While originally scheduled for Lise Davidsen, the Met was able to find a soprano in Rachel Willis-Sorensen to meet the challenges of the work and assemble a stellar cast”

OperaWireOperaWire · Nov 2025

“As well as its featured operas, the Wexford Opera Festival also puts on an array of other events, including performances of its “pocket operas,” that is, short works or abridged versions of larger works, sung to a piano accompaniment, presented in the smaller Jerome Hynes Theatre, rather than on the theatre’s main stage. One of the “pocket operas” on offer at this year’s festival was a production of Alexander Zemlinsky’s one-act wo”

OperaWireOperaWire · Nov 2025

“On November 2nd the Opéra de Monte Carlo opened its 2025–26 season with a single, semi-staged performance of Wagner’s “Der Fliegende Holländer” starring Bryn Terfel in the title role. One of Cecilia Bartoli’s distinctive innovations as Artistic Director has been to introduce more of these productions mises en espace—performances that are acted onstage without full sets and costumes—instead of purely concert versions. Past examples have included visits from the Wiene”

OperaWireOperaWire · Nov 2025

“Gioachino Rossini’s “Cendrillon,” the French language version of “La Cenerentola,” tells the story of Cinderella in real-life and not fairytale. The French translation, by Louis-Ernest Crevel de Charlemagne (1868), brings to life Jacopo Ferretti’s libretto, which follows the story of a young woman abused by her stepfather, Don Magnifico, and two stepsisters, Eléonore and Isabelle. Cinderella’s real name is Angelina and she person”

OperaWireOperaWire · Nov 2025

“La Forza del Destino” has always been considered a transitional work in Giuseppe Verdi’s output, bridging the purely romantic operas of his early period and the mature works where his musical language became more dramatic, direct, and personal. It was composed on a commission from the Imperial Theatre in St. Petersburg, where it premiered in 1862. The plot, based on a Spanish drama, is set around the 1740s during the War of the Austrian Succession.”

Zachary WoolfeThe New York Times · Feb 2024

“Lise Davidsen, entering the Italian repertoire at the company, was part of a superb cast as Verdi’s opera returned for the first time since 2006.”

OperaWireOperaWire · Oct 2025

“From October 13 to 25, the Lyon Opera House staged Modest Mussorgsky’s big opera “Boris Godunov.” An opera of Shakespearean proportions, the murder tsar resembles Richard III, with the added burden of a guilty conscience and, in spirit, certain historical operas such as Verdi’s “Don Carlo” or Meyerbeer’s. Its strength lies largely in the interplay of its different dimensions— psychological in the historical, historical in th”

OperaWireOperaWire · Oct 2025

“The Salle Cortot was built in 1929 by architect Auguste Perret and is adjacent to the École Normale de Musique de Paris, founded by Alfred Cortot in 1919. The performance hall is dedicated to teaching French music to local and international students. It hosts intimate concerts and recitals for approximately 400 audience members and is located in the 17th arrondissement, just a 12-minute walk from the Arc de Triomphe. Perret is well-known for his innovative use of”

OperaWireOperaWire · Oct 2025

“Opéra Royal Château de Versailles celebrated their 2025-26 season opening with Händel’s “Theodora” in the Chapelle Royale to a sold out crowd of locals and internationals. The Chapelle Royale was completed in 1710 under the reign of King Louis XIV. It was the last chapel built at Château de Versailles and features Gothic architecture with dramatic illustrated narratives in honor of Saint Louis and the Holy Trinity. The chapel also includes a Clicquot-designed organ that adds ex”

Zachary WoolfeThe New York Times · Apr 2024

“After making history as the Metropolitan Opera’s first work by a Black composer, Terence Blanchard’s “Fire” is back — with its showstopping step dance.”

Oussama ZahrThe New York Times · Apr 2024

“The tenor sang the role of Ruggero in a revival of Puccini’s opera that was performed with such restraint, it verged on overly careful.”

Jesse GreenThe New York Times · Mar 2024

“Will the Who’s rock opera about a traumatized boy hit the jackpot again?”

Jesse GreenThe New York Times · Mar 2024

“The “Succession” star headlines a Broadway revival of Ibsen’s play about a lifesaving doctor and the town that hates him.”

Oussama ZahrThe New York Times · Mar 2024

“Bartlett Sher’s middling production returned to the Metropolitan Opera, with a glorious Benjamin Bernheim and Nadine Sierra in the title roles.”

Oussama ZahrThe New York Times · Feb 2024

“In a revival of Franco Zeffirelli’s lavish production, the conductor Oksana Lyniv led a performance that transcended the gilded stage dressing.”

Zachary WoolfeThe New York Times · Jan 2024

“Starring a magnetic Aigul Akhmetshina, Carrie Cracknell’s lethargic staging updates Bizet’s opera to present-day America.”

Zachary WoolfeThe New York Times · Jan 2023

“Worries about the company’s future were momentarily stilled at a festive gala premiere on New Year’s Eve.”

Zachary WoolfeThe New York Times · Feb 2020

“A vivid new production yanks this story of political power grabbing from ancient Rome into the present day.”