Luigi Cherubini‘s Medea was a vehicle for Maria Callas – she brought back Cherubini’s long-forgotten score and made it her triumph. The French-language Médée, had received its premiere in Paris at the Théâtre Feydeau on 13 March 1797. Its opening

Vincenzo Bellini‘s final opera I Puritani is a daunting challenge, no matter which opera house attempts it. It is nearly impossible to assemble a cast of principals that is up to the task. The Royal Opera House, for the first

Bilbao, the largest city and economic capital of the Basque Country, isn’t usually on opera lovers’ circuits. But a promising cast occasioned this trip to see Umberto Giordano’s Andrea Chénier, a coproduction between ABAO Bilbao (Asociación Bilbaína de Amigos de

Georges Bizet (1838–1875) never had the success he wanted in his lifetime. He had two hits in the operas Les pêcheurs de perles and La jolie fille de Perth, but both operas came in for criticism. The Pearl Fishers for

Every Wagner production falls into two categories: “traditional” and “modern.” The latter, in turn, can be divided into two further kinds: controversial and extremely controversial—sometimes, controversy itself seems to be the point. Since the 1976 Jahrhundertring, conducted by Pierre Boulez

Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Castor et Pollux, generally regarded as one of his finest works, is staged with some frequency. For a fully staged opera production in 2026, however, you would have to visit two mid-scale European opera houses, the Grand Théâtre

Gaetano Donizetti’s setting of the final days of Henry VIII’s second wife, Anne Boleyn, as Anna Bolena, is a story of love and hate, loyalty and lies, and, ultimately, one woman’s death so another can take her place. In today’s

Opera director Tang Xinxin has a new production opening in Singapore of Verdi’s Macbeth, running 27 to 29 March. We spoke with Ms Tang about this production and her other work in a recent conversation. Ms Tang is a graduate