The Bayerische Staatsoper’s summer festival winded down with Lotte de Beer’s darkly effective production of Gounod ’sFaust.

I sort of have a love/hate fascination with countertenors/male falsettists.

Karina Gauvin slays for the slayed. Werk Bitch.

Zubin Mehta was a major part of musical life when I moved to Southern California in 1969, having started his tenure as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

It's a busy summer for Vida Miknevičiūtė and Eric Cutler, the subjects of this week's Grand Tier Grab Bag.

Yuval Sharon's production of The Excursions of Mr. Brouček shoots for the moon — and lands somewhat limply on Lake Constance.

It is no wonder Bernard Herrmann relishes the wistful lyricism in Barber's masterwork, as Herrmann's score for Vertigo is among the most beautiful and haunting of all film scores ever composed.

Wolf Trap Opera presented a lovely Eugene Onegin with particularly noteworthy performances by Magdalena Kuźma and Daniel O’Hearn.

Lorenzo Molajoli is a mysterious figure.

Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer's bubbly The Judgement of Paris brings a distinctly Californian terroir to operatic comedy.

Tobias Picker and Aryeh Lev Stollman's Lili Elbe receives its first recording ahead of its stateside transition.

Based on exactly one recording, Maurice Abravanel is my favorite opera conductor.

Les Arts Florissants (lightly) stages two Charpentier rarities as a summer wedding gone wrong.

Cher public is exhorted to join the Geplauder when the annual week of broadcasts from Bayreuth begins on Saturday

I trust, fellow Parterre readers, that we can all agree that Riccardo Muti is a great opera conductor.

While it may not be top-tier Rossini, Teatro Nuovo's mounting of Il turco in Italia is still good summer fun.

Fifty some years ago I stumbled on to John Barbirolli's recording of matchless Elgar & V-Williams music for strings and discovered my go-to conductor for life.

Elina Garanča's aborted first Ariadne may have been the headline item at the Salzburg Festival next month, but this week Parterre Box features the Zerbinetta, Ziyi Dai.

Teatro Nuovo pays tribute to a historic New York production of Don Giovanni with a talented ensemble.

Lucia di Lammermoor at La Scala, starring Rosa Feola, proves as airless as this summer's heatwaves.

Antonio Pappano's versatility in both German and Italian repertoire and beyond is both rare and impressive.

Whether an opera by Puccini, Verdi, Wagner, Strauss, or Berg, Dimitri Mitropoulos brought to the podium a total understanding and love for each score he touched.

Festival d’Aix-en-Provence confronts the living and the dead — and its own future — through audacious productions and an intimate world premiere.

I am once again going to laud the classic Rudolf Kempe commercial recording of Lohengrin (which I have lauded overall) for its conducting.

Roger Norrington conducted Rossini's Semiramide in Pesaro '94 and made the Orchestra part of the drama in a way I still have never heard duplicated in a Bel Canto opera.

Zany gags keep Zar und Zimmermann zipping along at the Deutsche Oper Berlin.

One Italian soprano continues to save the day in bel canto roles at La Scala; this week Parterre Box features Marta Torbidoni.

Many years ago, when the Met was deciding who the next principal conductor/music director was going to be, it seemed to be a tie between YN-S and Fabio Luisi.

Pierre Monteux's career defies time.

A grandly sung revival of The Ballad of Baby Doe at Central City Opera mines poignance from America's past and present.

Daniel Barenboim’s Tristan und Isolde is a performance I keep coming back to, again and again.

I first experienced the magic of Seiji Ozawa in 1972 when I was 12 years old.

Ambur Braid's biggest dramatic soprano assignment yet — the Dyer's Wife in Aix — is occasion for Parterre Box to feature her in some of her old repertoire.

Fausto Cleva, in this glorious Fanciulla from the old Met, demonstrates all the great skills of opera conducting

A Pasolini-inspired Tosca at La Monnaie does not quite find the pleasure in the pain.

Mesdames et Messieurs, this summer's broadcasts from the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence begin this weekend!

I think Patanè did far more than just hold it together: he did full honor to Verdi.

Opera conductors … my favorite subject!

He has conducted some of my favorite opera recordings.

Although Ernest Ansermet is most often associated with orchestral music, his 1964 recording of Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande is still my favorite.

Ahead of his new production of Die Frau ohne Schatten, Barrie Kosky chats with Kevin Ng in Aix about pretty much everything — except the details of his new Frau.

The Bayerische Staatsoper’s Ring cycle scores another triumph with Tobias Kratzer’s take on Die Walküre.

Greek National Opera's Medea in the ancient theater at Epidaurus is an intermittently rewarding exercise in nostalgia.

San Francisco Opera hosts an exuberant tribute to queerness past and present.

Historically, conductors were often viewed as rigid, authoritarian figures. Yannick Nézet-Séguin completely subverts this stereotype.

Grand Tier Grab Bag features the American Zwischenfach mezzo Irene Roberts ahead of an eclectic season of Wagner.

Brett Dean's Of One Blood casts a well-trodden Tudor tale in a poignant, new light.

The artist who I feel should have made it to the Met is Patrizia Ciofi.

Giannina Arangi-Lombardi never sang at the Met.

Brundibár at the Opéra Comique combines whimsy with historicity to sobering effect.