That first time is a little daunting, for some us a lot daunting. Not only is there new jargon to learn, but it’s often not even in English! Whom can you trust enough to ask What’s ‘tessitura’ and is ...

In the Canadian Opera Company's production of Mozart's The Abduction from the Seraglio, an opera that stands out for featuring two leading roles for coloratura soprano – the voice type known for speed ...

(Talk Like An Opera Geek attempts to decode the intriguing and intimidating lexicon of the opera house.) Voices are as individual as the people they belong to, yet the opera world has created ...

The Metropolitan Opera has a dazzling new coloratura soprano. She is Atlanta-born Mattiwilda Dobbs, 31, pert, appealing to the eye, solacing to the most opera-worn ear. She made her debut as Gilda in ...

Opera tends to be a love it or hate it form of artistic expression; I fall strictly into the latter camp, since I tend to feel the vocals ruin what otherwise might be a fine piece of music. That ...

You would have to be in a pretty miserable mood not to enjoy the Vancouver Opera Festival’s La Cenerentola (Cinderella), a production that manages to be polished and cartoonish at the same time. The ...

Opera Birmingham's string of outstanding productions continued this past weekend with "Faust," Charles Gounod's melodiously sumptuous opera about lost youth, lust, morality and an otherworldly ...

"Cut" may be a dirty word in purer-minded operatic circles, but even the most ardent fans of Richard Strauss must itch for the shears when it comes to Die schweigsame Frau. A really rather trivial ...

OPERA translated into English, which had not been heard at the Metropolitan since the days when “Parsifal” was performed Anglice to spare the emotions of patriots who could not endure Wagner’s text in ...

Soprano Roberta Peters, 23, was just sitting down in the hairdresser’s shop one morning last week when the phone rang. It was a message from the Metropolitan Opera, warning that she might have to ...