February 2021

This month’s cover features the soprano Golda Schultz, profiled as she prepares to sing Agathe in the new Der Freischütz in Munich. The interview ranges widely from her early days in South Africa to her role as an international ambassador for change within the operatic world.

In his ‘Firing the canon’ polemic, Oxford University’s Jonathan Cross challenges the narrowness of the operatic repertoire and argues for a fresh approach when opera companies do emerge into a post-Covid world. ‘Let’s make opera for everyone,’ he says, ‘and then everyone will come to the opera.’ Also on the subject of change, this month’s Editorial is cautiously optimistic about the headway women conductors are making in opera, but calls for more in positions of leadership and hopes that the time will soon come when ‘women conductors’ are simply ‘conductors’.

The well-loved repertoire is not ignored, though, and two articles make the case for an empathetic relistening to La traviataand La Bohème in the time of Covid. David Kasunic looks at how the death of Chopin from TB may have informed the Dumas fils play on which Verdi’s opera is based, and David Chandler traces the soul of Puccini’s opera back through its librettist Luigi Illica to the death of his friend the composer Alfredo Catalani.

Our other features this month include:

—Great singers in great roles: Franz Grundheber on Wozzeck

—Career navigation: the first in a series in which singers discuss steps on the ladder

—A Vivaldi odyssey

—For the record, with Gerald Finley

We review live performances wherever they have been happening and cover new recordings and books. Our Disc of the Month is Il Trespolo tutore, the latest instalment in Andrea De Carlo’s ongoing Stradella project (on the Arcana label).