Last Laugh
From the National Theatre, London, a rare revival of George Farquhar’s The Beaux’ Stratagem
Otello in Athens
Robert Wilson tackles Verdi in the birthplace of tragedy
The Music Man
From the stage of the San Francisco Opera, Jakub Józef Orliński’s Orpheus enchants the Golden Gate
Into the Maelstrom
Tchaikovsky’s Queen of Spades burns like a fever dream in the hands of Nathalie Stutzman, contralto turned star conductor
The Man Who Knows Don Giovanni
On the eve of a new production in Turin, master maestro Riccardo Muti unlocks the hero’s secrets
Second-Lead Syndrome
Dancing man Tommy Rall steals the screen in MGM’s Kiss Me, Kate
Danse Macabre
A wicked Rigoletto on the floating stage of Bregenz, Austria
Ahoy for a Shipwreck
In Houston, Louisa Muller directs a long-neglected operatic masterpiece
Getting It Right
For the British playwright Alan Bennett, other people’s lives are just the dress rehearsal
The Nuns’ Story
Live from San Francisco, Dialogues of the Carmelites, Poulenc’s gripping chronicle of the French Revolution
Lift Every Voice and Sing
From Heartbeat Opera, a Fidelio for our time
Turning Point
Patrice Chéreau’s “Centennial Ring” at the Bayreuth Festival in 1976 changed history
Incantation
Decaying film stock, the Song of Songs, and the seraphic soprano of Angel Blue
Julius Caesar takes the Big Peach
The Atlanta Opera’s Handel is anything but stuffy
Ancient History
From operas on Nixon, Klinghoffer, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and women of the Gold Rush, John Adams progresses to Shakespeare
The Yellow and the Blue
Led by their American music director Hobart Earle, the Odessa Philharmonic flies Ukraine’s colors in Berlin
London’s 34th Billy Elliot
Caught live at the Victoria Palace Theatre in 2014, Elliott Hanna makes a legendary part his own
Bad Samaritans
From Glyndebourne, Ethyl Smyth’s ill-starred, tremendous The Wreckers (1906), at last in the original French
Second-Guessing Puccini
Live from Salzburg 2022, Asmik Grigorian takes on the trifecta Il Trittico
In Her Glory
Norway’s Lise Davidsen triumphs as Richard Strauss’s Grecian princess Ariadne
The Eternal Quadrangle
From Rome, a sumptuous revival of Verdi’s early corker Ernani
Rehabilitating Mozart
When Peter Sellars and Teodora Currentzis shook up Salzburg with La Clemenza di Tito
Her Sixth Tony
The riveting Audra McDonald channels Billie Holiday in decline
Finnish Firecracker
Live from Helsinki: Karita Mattila, diva without borders
