Clik here to view.
La Fanciulla del West, Puccini’s Western Romp
Giacomo Puccini was not a cowboy, but that didn’t stop him from taking on the Wild West in La Fanciulla del West. Set in a California mining town, it tells the story of gun-slinging saloonkeeper Minnie...
View ArticleClik here to view.
'The Magic Flute' Continues a Met Holiday Tradition
Saturday afternoon’s Metropolitan Opera broadcast features the house’s holiday tradition of presenting an abridged English-language performance of Mozart’s The Magic Flute. The Julie Taymor production...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Shakespearean Tragedy Makes a Return with Verdi’s Otello
Love, madness and treachery (at least in its most musical form) provide excellent Saturday afternoon company, as Verdi’s Otello is featured as the Met Opera’s first radio broadcast of the calendar...
View ArticleClik here to view.
‘Pelléas et Mélisande’ Returns to the Met Stage
Over the course of his composing career, Claude Debussy only wrote one opera: Pelléas et Mélisande. On Saturday, you can hear it for yourself during its return to the Met Opera stage for the first time...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Missed the Premiere Run of Muhly’s ‘Marnie’? It’s Back for Your Saturday...
This is a past production, from November 10, 2018A novel-turned-film-turned opera: Nico Muhly’s Marnie is your Saturday Met broadcast. An adaptation of the 1961 Winston Graham book, the Michael...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Bizet’s ‘Carmen’: A Frenchman’s Vision of Spain
On Saturday at 1 pm, established opera lovers and first-timers alike will be treated to Bizet’s Carmen, with mezzo-soprano Clémentine Margaine in the title role and Roberto Alagna as her comically...
View ArticleClik here to view.
In Mozart’s ‘Don Giovanni,’ Your Misdeeds Catch Up to You
Mozart returns to the Met Opera on Saturday afternoon with Don Giovanni. The tale of the lecherous rake and his subsequent punishment has undergone several reimaginings and reevaluations in recent...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Rigoletto, a Most Tragic Jester
The tragic tale of court jester Rigoletto is yours for the listening on Saturday afternoon’s Metropolitan Opera broadcast. Roberto Frontali is the title character, who anxiously tries to out-fate a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
“La Fille du Régiment”: A Charming and Challenging Donizetti
Saturday’s Met Opera broadcast features Pretty Yende and Javier Camerena taking to the stage as Marie and Tonio in Donizetti’s La Fille du Régiment. The duo leads a cast that includes actress and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
‘Falstaff’: Verdi’s Comedic Operatic Finale
Verdi is a composer well known for tragedies like La Traviata and Rigoletto, but this Saturday, settle in for a Met Opera broadcast of the Italian composer’s final opera, a Falstaff of comedic...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Samson et Dalila: A Beautiful, Blinding Voice
Anita Rachvelishvili takes her turn as Saint-Säens’ titular femme fatale during the Met Opera’s live broadcast of Samson et Dalila, on Saturday at 1 pm. She’s joined on stage by Gregory Kunde’s...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Die Walküre: Divine Interference and Mysterious Identities
True, Das Rheingold was the Met Opera radio broadcast a few weeks ago, but things really get started this weekend with Die Walküre at 1 pm. When Wagner conceived his mythological epic, Rheingold was...
View ArticleOpera and Tech: The Met Ring and Beyond
Something seismic might be changing in the opera world when the first discussion you hear about a production is the technology. Yes, singers and conductors matter as much as ever. But — let's face it —...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Siegfried: What We Came Here For
When Wagner first conceived what would become his Ring Cycle, he was primarily focused on telling the tragic story of the hero Sigurd, but wound up writing even more music to flesh out the world his...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Verdi’s Aida: Fall in Love but Don’t Get Caught!
Aida is an operatic classic, one of Verdi’s best-known pieces, and one of the most-programmed selections in the opera world. It’s also the season’s penultimate Met broadcast, featuring Anna Netrebko as...
View ArticleA Good Death, in Opera and in Theater
The concept of “a good death” has gained currency in recent years, and that is a positive thing. Death is inevitable, yet so many medical practitioners and patients confront it in ways that make the...
View Article2019 Met’s National Council Auditions Grand Finals Concert (Rebroadcast)
On Saturday at 1 pm, join us for a rebroadcast of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. The concert, recorded on March 31 of this year, features winners Thomas Glass, baritone; Miles...
View ArticleRemembering Franco Zeffirelli (1923–2019)
VIENNA—Austria’s largest city is one of the world capitals of music, visual arts, and culture. Being here invites one to think in aesthetic terms and ask big questions about life, art, beauty, genius...
View ArticleMust-See Classical Concerts This September
All of the customary glamour of season-opening events can’t quite keep me from glancing over my shoulder at the possibility of a recession, which is so much in the news these days — and never a happy...
View ArticlePlanet Opera: South Carolina
As someone who studies and teaches the history of opera, I have long grappled with the question of where and when the first opera was presented on the land that later became the United States of...
View ArticleICYMI: 2019 Met’s National Council Auditions Grand Finals Concert
On Saturday at 1 pm, join us for a rebroadcast of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions Grand Finals Concert. The concert, recorded on March 31 of this year, features winners Thomas Glass,...
View ArticlePorgy and Bess’s Promise for the Future of Opera
If Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess is, as the late social critic Harold Cruse put it, “[t]he most incongruous, contradictory cultural symbol ever created in the western world” and “belongs in a museum,” why...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Met Opera Broadcasts are Back with Akhnaten
The Metropolitan Opera returns to radio this Saturday at 1 pm with Philip Glass’s Akhnaten, a story of the controversial — or, some would say, revolutionary — 14th-century BCE pharaoh. Countertenor...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Tchaikovsky’s Queen of Spades: Fate, Secrets, and a Bad Hand
This Saturday at 1 pm, travel to Imperial Russia with The Queen of Spades, at the Met for its first performances there since 2011. Yusif Eyvazov takes to the stage as Hermann, the doomed gambler; Lise...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Verdi’s Macbeth: But I’m Supposed to Be King
Anna Netrebko returns to her Met Opera beginnings on Saturday at 1 pm, as she sings the part of Lady Macbeth — her debut role there — in Adrian Noble’s production of this Verdi classic. Željko Lučić...
View ArticleUnmissable Nights on Planet Opera this Winter and Early Spring
There is a great deal of outstanding opera this winter and early spring in New York and elsewhere in the U.S. and Europe. Here are some of the best: Jan. 7–22: It is not my way to write reviews, but I...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Berg's Wozzeck: Rich Man, Poor Man, Good Man, Bad Man
This Saturday at 1 pm, Alban Berg’s Wozzeck is brought to life in a new production by William Kentridge, who previously tackled the composer’s Lulu at the Met in 2015. This weekend’s broadcast features...
View ArticleVerdi’s 'La Traviata': Fall in Love, Catch a Cough
On Saturday at 1 pm, tune in for a broadcast of Verdi’s perennially-popular drama La Traviata. The Michael Mayer production features Aleksandra Kurzak as the bon-vivant and literally contagious...
View ArticleAn Analysis of the 2020-2021 Metropolitan Opera Season
The current 2019–20 season at the Metropolitan Opera has been, in my opinion, the strongest in many years, with four excellent new productions (Porgy and Bess, Akhnaten, Wozzeck, and Agrippina) and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro: Always Be True
On Saturday at 1 pm, Mozart’s classic opera bufa The Marriage of Figaro returns to your speakers. This Metropolitan Opera production of the farcical misadventures of Beaumarchais’ Figaro features Adam...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Handel’s Agrippina: Going on All in on Kinfolk
Tune in on Saturday at 1 pm for a relatively rare treat from the Met Opera: Handel’s Agrippina. The afternoon’s broadcast is part of the house’s premiere run for this Handelian gem. Joyce DiDonato is...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Mozart’s Così fan tutte: A Casual Spouse Swap
On Saturday at 1 pm, the Metropolitan Opera will broadcast a performance of Mozart’s Così fan tutte. This Phelim McDermott revival moves the action from 18th-century Naples to a more familiar Coney...
View ArticleOld Music, New Takes: How the Pandemic Rewrites Bach, Beethoven, and Sondheim...
Just because a classic is timeless doesn’t mean that it’s stationary.Symphonies, operas, and songs — even the ones we’ve known for much of our lives — often seem to rewrite themselves with a different...
View ArticleClik here to view.
On Taking Lip [Service]
May 25, 2020, was Memorial Day, a federal holiday whose origins lie in honoring those that lost their lives in “America’s War to Force Terrible Humans to Stop Owning and Systematically Subjugating an...
View ArticleFirst Listen: Invictus
Art and current events are intertwined tighter than a snake around Asclepius’s staff. There are Otto Dix’s paintings after World War I. Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony and Napoleon. Nina Simone’s...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Gounod’s Faust: Devilish Deals
On Saturday at 1 pm, the Met Opera presents a 2011 recording of Charles Gounod’s Faust. The French composer’s take on the German legend features Jonas Kaufmann as the old philosopher, and René Pape as...
View ArticleDonizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor: Listeners’ Choice
This Saturday at 1 pm, the Met Opera presents the winner of the first-ever Listeners’ Choice poll: the historic 1956 recording of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor starring Maria Callas in her only...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Massenet’s Cendrillon: A Classic Fairy Tale
On Saturday at 1 pm, the Met Opera presents a 2018 recording of Massenet’s Cendrillon. This operatic adaptation of Cinderella features Joyce DiDonato as the titular heroine and Alice Coote as her...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Puccini’s La Rondine: What’s the Harm in a Little White Lie?
On Saturday at 1 pm, tune in as the Met Opera presents a 2009 recording of Puccini’s La Rondine. This performance features Angela Gheorghiu as Magda, a woman caught between a happy new life with her...
View ArticleThe Classical Music Scene of Uptown New York
Listen to this episode of New York in Concert on Saturday, June 5th at 7pm, or tune in for an encore broadcast on Tuesday, June 8th at 10pm. For some people “uptown” means a trip to world class...
View ArticleAida: Red Heart, White Eyes
In Giuseppe Verdi’s “Aida,” Princess Aida is torn between her homeland of Ethiopia (ruled by her father, King Amonasro) and her captor, the Egyptian leader Radamès who loves her and whom she loves in...
View ArticleAida: Off the Chain
At the heart of Verdi's opera “Aida” is an African love story, where an Egyptian general and an Ethiopian princess fall in love. It premiered in Cairo in 1871, but the truth is, very few Africans went...
View ArticleAida: 100% Egyptian Cotton
“Opera has always been not just adjacent to colonial conquest, but perhaps … quite a large part of it.” Pranathi Diwakar, Every Voice with Terrance McKnight researcher. When the US and British cotton...
View ArticleAida: America’s Confederates in Egypt
When “Aida” premiered in Egypt in 1871, it delivered some not-so-subtle messaging in the dramatization of light-skinned Egyptians dominating dark-skinned Ethopians. Within two years, the man who...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Mozart's The Magic Flute
Listen Saturday, December 16th at 1pm.Program notes courtesy of the Metropolitan Opera.Click here for the 2023-24 Met Opera Radio Broadcast Season.The Met’s family-friendly production of Mozart’s...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Wagner's Tannhäuser
Listen Saturday, December 23rd at 1pm.Program notes courtesy of the Metropolitan Opera.Click here for the 2023-24 Met Opera Radio Broadcast Season.Following his heroic performance as Siegfried in the...
View ArticleMozart's Le Nozze di Figaro
Listen Saturday, December 30th at 1pm.Program notes courtesy of the Metropolitan Opera.Click here for the 2023-24 Met Opera Radio Broadcast Season.The Metropolitan Opera’s 2023-24 season of Saturday...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Mozart and Beethoven in Concert at the Met
Listen Saturday, February 24th at 1pm.Program notes courtesy of the Metropolitan Opera.Click here for the 2023-24 Met Opera Radio Broadcast Season.The Metropolitan Opera’s 2023-24 season of Saturday...
View ArticlePuccini’s La Rondine
Listen Saturday, April 20th at 1pm.Program notes courtesy of the Metropolitan Opera.Click here for the 2023-24 Met Opera Radio Broadcast Season.The Metropolitan Opera’s 2023-24 season of Saturday...
View ArticleTerence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones
Listen Saturday, April 27th at 1pm.Program notes courtesy of the Metropolitan Opera.Click here for the 2023-24 Met Opera Radio Broadcast Season.The Metropolitan Opera’s 2023-24 season of Saturday...
View Article
