In homage to director and designer Nikos S. Petropoulos, Greek National Opera did a revival of his 2001 La Traviata, first given at the Olympic Theatre. The design was Over The Top in the best possible way, with the first

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