March 2026

Our front cover picture is of Lisette Oropesa as Elvira, wielding a halberd in the new production of I puritani at the Metropolitan Opera.

Features inside include:

A profile of the baritone Christian Gerhaher, due to sing his first Wotan, in Salzburg, talking to Nicolas Blanmont about travel travails and being converted to opera

Dutch National Opera’s Sophie de Lint in conversation with John Allison about Amsterdam’s Opera Forward Festival

The ongoing learning process undertaken by the director Davide Livermore, as he looks back at 25 years of theatrical experience with John-Pierre Joyce

Patrick Summers, champion of operas new and old, steps down from his duties as music and artistic director of Houston Grand Opera and reminisces with Rebecca Paller

Robert Ward’s opera The Crucible, to be performed by Washington National Opera at the Lisner Auditorium in March, is possibly even more relevant today than it was when it was at its premiere in 1961, as Eric Myers reveals

Leaping through the Stage Door is the baritone Ricardo José Rivera, fresh from his triumph as Riccardo in the worldwide broadcast of I puritani at the Met, jumping in with only a few hours’ notice

Productions reviewed around the world include: I puritani at the Met and Amahl and the Night Visitors at Lincoln Center, Luisa Miller in Valencia, Fidelio in Vienna, Die Walküre and Robinson Crusoé in Paris, Die Frau ohne Schatten in Bonn, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk at La Scala, Milan, L’Écume des jours in Lille, Lohengrin in Rome, La clemenza di Tito in Venice, Il cappello di paglia di Firenze in Liège, I Capuleti e i Montecchi and Faust in Amsterdam, Lucrezia Borgia in Florence, Salome in Buenos Aires, Die tote Stadt in Mainz, Medea in Naples, Dead Souls in Moscow, The Silent Prince in Koh Chang, The Delta King’s Blues in Washington