We left at the interval...

  The September/October 2026 issue of France’s Opéra Magazine was waiting for me in a pile of unopened post when I got back from my summer break at the end of October. Then the November/December issue was delivered this week. So here are their top picks, in the recording review section, for the four months. Their ‘pick-of-the-bunch’ for September/October, with one of their top ‘Diamond’ awards, was Harmonia Mundi’s Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, A Tribute , with the Freiburger Barockorchester and the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra both conducted by Nicholas McGegan. Nearly all the arias are by Händel, the exceptions being one by Purcell and another by Bach. ‘Warmth of timbre, nobility of phrasing and an almost physical intensity of expression make up her artistry, focused entirely on revealing the human passions.’ Then, for November/December, they chose two new Palazzetto Bru Zane releases and gave a 'Diamond' to each. Hérold’s Zampa has Julien Henric (‘at once terrifying and dange...

  Photo: User 'Mysid' on Wikipedia My new season has already started, with a concert in Brussels . But before the summer, Parterre Box asked its readers to say what they were most excited about in the coming season, and I thought I'd post my reply here. ***** What am I most looking forward to next season? Good question. I don’t remember ever being quite so unexcited about a future season’s line-up. Perhaps, this coming year, I’m just unlucky with the houses I frequent, and other places (Munich? Madrid?) have more stimulating things on offer. In my case, the feeling I have is that I subscribed dutifully, more out of habit than enthusiasm. My overall feeling when next season’s programmes started to emerge was simply that they were disappointingly tame. One of the things I’m most interested in is a production that’s part of neither the past nor the coming season, as it’s Le siège de Corinthe at the Pesaro festival in August. By the time Parterre publishes this Talk of the T...

  Photo: allpaintingstore.com La Monnaie at Bozar in Brussels, Sunday October 25 2026 Conductor: Alain Altinoglu. Soprano: Maria Bengtsson. Baritone: Johan Reuter. Anton Webern: Passacaglia für Orchester , op.1 (1908) Arnold Schönberg: Verklärte Nacht (für Streichorchester), op.4 (1899/1917) Alexander von Zemlinsky: Lyrische Symphonie in sieben Gesängen, nach Gedichten von Rabindranath Tagore , op.18 (1923) It shouldn't take more than a week to write up a concert. But after more than two months away at a gentler pace, coming back to Paris (this year in the thick of the annual art fairs, and against a background of violent social unrest) always requires some readjustment. Putting the clocks back an hour doesn't help. And in this case, I've been blocked by simply not knowing what to write. Once you've stated that everything was just... right, what more can you add? As I was still away in September, I missed Gounod's  Roméo et Juliette . According to fellow subscriber...

Auditorium Scavolini, Pesaro, Friday June 21 2026 Conductor: Carlo Rizzi. Production: Davide Livermore. Sets: Eleonora Peronetti, Paolo Gep Cucco, Davide Livermore. Video: D-Wok. Costumes: Gianluca Falaschi. Choreography: Erika Rombaldoni. Lighting: Nicolas Bovey. Mahomet II: Adrian Sâmpetrean. Cléomène: Matteo Roma. Pamyra: Vasilisa Berzhanskaya. Néoclès: Maxim Mironov. Hiéros: Simón Orfila. Adraste: Tianxuefei Sun. Omar: Giuseppe De Luca. I smène: Anna-Doris Capitelli. Chorus of the Ventidio Basso theatre. Bologna Municipal Theatre Orchestra. Photos: Amati Bacciardi While I’ve no intention of teaching granny to suck eggs, I think any article about Le siège de Corinthe is bound to include at least something about the history - or vicissitudes, you might say - of the work. Those of you who already know all about Corinthian egg-sucking can just skip to the performance itself. So (1)… Rossini’s Le siège de Corinthe premiered in Paris in October 1826 and to celebrate, the Rossini Opera ...

La Monnaie, Brussels, Sunday June 28 2026 Conductor: Jordan de Souza. Production & costumes: Rafael R. Villalobos. Sets: Emanuele Sinisi. Lighting: Felipe Ramos. Paintings: Santiago Ydáñez. Floria Tosca: Leah Hawkins. Mario Cavaradossi: Stefano La Colla. Il barone Scarpia: Lucio Gallo. Cesare Angelotti: Li Huanhong. Il sagrestano: Paolo Orecchia. Spoletta: Trystan Llŷr Griffiths. Sciarrone: Kamil Ben Hsaïn Lachiri. Un pastore: Pieter De Praetere. Un carceriere: René Laryea. Orchestra and Chorus of La Monnaie. Photos: Pieter Claes, Karl Forster My last opera of the 25-26 season - assuming Rossini’s Le siège de Corinthe in Pesaro this coming August doesn’t count - was Rafael R. Villalobos’s production of Tosca , in Brussels. This isn’t new at La Monnaie, but when it first appeared there in 2021 it was - like this season’s Norma  as well - severely hit by Covid restrictions, and so attended by only a few. I’d previously only seen the director’s Hänsel und Gretel , or in this...

Opéra Comique (Salle Favart), Paris, Sunday June 7, 2026 Programme: Janáček: Mládí (Youth) for wind ensemble. Poulenc: La bonne neige, De grandes cuillers de neige (from Un soir de neige ), O magnum mysterium (from Quatre motets pour le temps de Noël ). Jean-Claude Grumberg: De Pitchik à Pitchouk , a 'tale for old children'. Tino Rossi, arr. Brice Legée for five voices: Petit Papa Noël . Krása: Brundibár, incorporating… ... Ilse Weber: Ich wandre durch Theresienstadt .  Cast: Conductor: Louis Langrée. Production: Muriel Mayette-Holtz, Jean-Claude Berutti. Sets and costumes: Rudy Sabounghi. Lighting: François Thouret. Choreography: Christine Bonneton. Drawings: Louis Lavedan. Les Frivolités Parisiennes. Children of the Maîtrise Populaire de l'Opéra-Comique. Photos: Stefan Brion The dreadful history of Hans Krása’s Brundibár will be familiar to many, so I won’t expound on it for long in this post. Details are easy enough to find online. Krása was a Jewish composer in Czec...