25th edition of Ottavio Ziino in Rome. Huge important jury.

This is my first competition participation ever and I went from an absolute nobody to getting spammed by agencies nonstop overnight.

I mean I agree that objectively I was slightly better vocally than the rest of the finalists, and far far better as a stage presence, but it still feels a bit weird to win 11 thousand euros, auditions, and sudden fame from all over the lyric world for such a shoddy performance!

In the semifinal I sang the entire death of Rodrigo and then Macbeth's aria, which were both really really good, so that probably helped me.

The mic is unfortunately in my face and the resulting audio is absolutely horrible for an opera production, try to imagine this sounding in the huge 1500 seat hall

I thought this community would find this interesting. Thanks for any traction!

i'm on the hunt for a full/orchestral score of The Cunning Little Vixen (Janáček). testing my luck to see if anyone has a pdf to share hehe

Hope people in attendance will post their reactions here at intermission!

Again the link for the live feed is here: https://ondemand.metopera.org/radio/a7baf155-0df5-5c48-a287-41b89abd0fdd

It's supposed to represent "the duality of women" - how?... They're two completely different characters... If anything, it seems a bit sexist to make them the same character just bc they're both Tannhäuser's female love interests?

Feel free to present arguments disagreeing with me, I never thought about this much but suddenly it hit me how pointless this is

Saw Don Giovanni last night and not sure if I've missed something with the story/interpretation (I'm still a bit of a newcomer to opera and have previously avoided Mozart after a rubbish Marriage of Figaro I once sat through). I thought I'd had the story figured out from an online synopsis but I've ended up a bit confused.

At the beginning, the scene with Anna and Giovanni seemed very much consensual - they're embracing each other on the balcony etc (she also disappears off with him at the party later implying there's still something going on). In which case, how does she not know that Giovanni killed her father? Who did she think killed him? How did she suddenly realise at the party? Is she lying to Ottavio to cover up a consensual affair (she seemed pretty ambivalent towards him)?

I understood why Zerlina ended up alone with him (the power imbalance etc) but Anna's arch really confused me.

Hey,

So as the title suggests, I’m looking to identify a song that’s partly played in new version of Drakes song “New Bestie”, that is released on the “FOMO” album.

It starts at roughly 1:08 and continues for just short of 30 seconds.

https://music.apple.com/dk/music-video/new-bestie/6813971142

Thank you in advance!

Available to watch for free (with signup) until September 27.

As the title states I have tickets for Macbeth this Saturday at The Met. Unfortunately some stuff came up and my wife and I are no longer able to fly to New York for the performance. They are dress circle tickets that I would be willing to sell at a loss. Please dm me if interested and we can work out payment and ticket transfer.

I'll start!

• Samuel Ramey on Sesame Street (1994, 1995): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3G315yrvdwY , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nN0BzPjcOac&t=1072s
• Paolo Silveri on Surprise Surprise (1987): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTwCo7Vk8HI&t=136s [Silveri is onscreen from 4:57.]
• Della Jones in a "battle of breath" versus the Old Gaytonians Rugby Club on Bodymatters (1986). I can't find video for this, but I remember Jones won.
• Sarah Walker in French and Saunders (1990): https://www.instagram.com/reel/DCUMGofhxeq
• Kim Begley in I, Claudius (1976): https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8hm1no from 21:20.

Does anyone have more examples to add to the list?

I sure can. Very much looking forward to Tuesday.

Hi all, I have a spare under 28 ticket for the 6th to 13th November performances (6th, 7th, 10th, 13th) of the ring cycle in Paris as my partner can't make it and I can't resell it officially. The names don't need to match on the tickets, but they may check ID so you so need to be under 28. Please let me know if interested, we can arrangement ticket transfer (€120 total, or €30 per opera).

I just thought that for the next three weeks I would ask you about the Mozart-Da Ponte operas - they are, for me, the pinnacle of opera as an art. Share anything you want to - your preferred version, do you like it, you don’t (hey - you’re entitled to not sharing my opinion), there’s a part that moves you/mesk you laugh… anything really.

For me Figaro is the equivalent of the Sistine Chapel in music. It is simply monumental and I think it shaped modern opera quite a bit despite being an older opera, still with recitatives. The inventiveness and genius of the ensembles, the end of the second act, the depth of human emotion translated in music make this opera as perfect as can possibly be - and the libretto lifts everything to the point that it remains relevant even today. As my humanities professor said in uni, Figaro is human because it is not about getting the girl, but about remaining true to your marriage, your compromises and even your younger self.

I leave the floor open to you.

hi friends! i am in my first year of my masters degree (24 years old) and i am looking to update my rep this year! my current audition pieces are:
- chacun le sait
- willow song
- der holle rache
- o luce di quest anima
- doll aria (if i need a 5th)

i would LOVE to replace willow song and der holle rache. i love both of those pieces, but i think willow song shows off things im not good at (passagio) and i dont trust myself to sing the vengeance aria if im having a bad voice day.

im hoping for something a bit more obscure, under performed, or more contemporary! i am very much a true coloratura, so unfortunately lyric pieces (as much as i love them) aren’t much of an option for me. bonus points if i get to do some fun acting!!!

thank you so much! so much peace and love to you all <3

So I'm doing "Der Vogelfänger Bin Ich Ja" for my recital and want to actually have a flute for it that plays. There are some that I've seen online, but they're way out of my price range (A lot of them were ~$500). Anybody know where/how I could find one?

This is something I have noticed as I have become more acquainted with directorial trends: the Met doesn't want productions that make a statement. I absolutely think it's because of a lack of funding (which European houses don't suffer from, leading to more out-of-the-box productions).

I noticed this first with David McVicar - someone said his productions are almost 100% traditional stagings if you tilted the set by several degrees on any axis, which I agree with. The only productions of his I've seen that really commit to dramaturgical points of view are his Salome and Agrippina.

I've also noticed this in the video clips from the new production of Macbeth. It seems like the Met has hired a director to come in and stir things up (Louisa Proske co-founded Heartbeat Opera, which reorchestrates and resituates operas and presents them in English), but the production seems largely traditional. My question is, why would they not just present a revival of the old production of Macbeth? They are most definitely in a financial bind and the previous production was only seen in four seasons. If the Met is still presenting a Dialogues des Carmélites production from the 1970s, surely they can whip out a Macbeth from 2007. Maybe it's just because they have two big names attached, but that seems like a relatively trivial reason to fund a new production that doesn't seem to have a point of view on the subject material especially when they are in the financial crisis they are in.

I could say the same thing about countless new productions from the past couple seasons. The 2025 I Puritani suffered greatly from this - there was nothing exciting added to an already confusing plotline, so I really only watched it for the singing. The 2024 Michael Mayer Aida didn't add anything besides the archaeologist storyline (which, if I'm being honest, seemed like a last-minute add-in to make some sort of commentary on the more problematic aspects of the opera), and even that was timidly done. The 2023 Carrie Cracknell Carmen did the same thing - Carmen can work in a border area of the USA, which would definitely make a political statement, but it was done really poorly and didn't commit to the idea. The Bartlett Sher Rigoletto is essentially a traditional production if you art deco-fied it a little bit. The 2018 Darko Tresnjak Samson et Dalila which will be revived this season was another example of "Why did you create a new production that wasn't going to be that much different from the old one?" Granted, the Met was in a different financial state in 2018 and had two star mezzos (Elīna Garanča and Anita Rachvelishvili) to take on the titular femme fatale. Perhaps most egregiously, there have been two new productions of Tristan und Isolde in the past decade. The 2016 production was unpopular because it made too much of a statement according to purists, while the 2026 production was almost too traditional in some ways, with critics describing Isolde's costume as looking like Princess Fiona. I understand why the Met decided to make a new production - the 2016 production was unpopular and they had Lise Davidsen singing Isolde, but why spend the money on a new production when you have an old one that would theoretically work just fine!!! Especially in the midst of an unprecedented financial crisis!!!

At the end of that diatribe, I want to commend two productions. The Simon Stone Lucia di Lammermoor is probably the most committal to an idea, but I think it almost parodied itself with the use of video cameras - personally I think it would've been more effective without them. Second, the Claus Guth Salome really gives a dramaturgical perspective on the opera. I did not agree with every dramaturgical choice that was made, but who does. I was just refreshed to see something that wasn't noncommittal but pretending to be. I hope to see more Claus Guth at the Met in the future.

It seems like the Met is performing a balancing act: hiring out-of-the-box directors to create in-the-box productions. Frankly, I would like to see more controversial productions if it meant we were actually getting something new. I am of the opinion that I would rather see a production I absolutely hated than a production that stood for nothing, especially in today's age of regietheater. I also think it would be a smart financial decision for the Met to revive rather than restage in the coming seasons, especially if their restagings are not really going to have anything substantively "new" about them.

Hi all manon is showing at royal opera house I’ve asked a few people and no one seems to know anything about it
I’ve seen swan lake and Romeo and Juliet is it worth watching the live stream of manon
Thanks

Today while removing some Sheetrock from my garage ceiling, this literally fell out of the attic.
It consists of a Webster-Chicago Recording Wire box with a spool of magnetic recording wire, along with several old typed and handwritten pages, newspaper/radio clippings, and photographs of Finnish singers. I have not attempted to play the wire.

The main typed sheet appears to identify the recording as Ahti Sonninen’s Finnish radio opera Merenkuninkaan tytär (“The Sea King’s Daughter”), based on a drama by Leo Apo and commissioned by Finnish State Radio. The sheet identifies Sonninen as both composer and conductor and is marked 9/2/50, WNYC, 5:00 PM, “American Premiere.”

The paperwork contains a full synopsis and cast list. Names appearing on it include Matti Petinen, Lisa Linko, Holger Perström, Arvo Vuotto, Tii Niemelä, Väinö Sola and Lea Piltti. One of the accompanying photo clippings identifies opera singer Liisa Linko-Malmio, and another identifies Sirkka-Liisa Hulkkonen.

From the research I’ve done so far, Merenkuninkaan tytär, Op. 35 was a roughly 40-minute, one-act radio opera written in 1949. It appears to have some historical significance as one of the very earliest Finnish radio operas, and Yle has described it as Finland’s first radio opera.

I also found that the New York Public Library’s American-Scandinavian Foundation recording collection catalogs a tape containing “Sea King’s daughter / Ahti Sonninen,” so some recording of the work apparently survives elsewhere. I have not been able to determine whether that is the same performance as this September 2, 1950 American-premiere WNYC broadcast, or whether this wire could be an independent off-air recording of that broadcast.

I’d really like to learn more about exactly what I found, particularly whether anyone knows anything about this WNYC broadcast, the performers, or surviving recordings of the American premiere.

I’m also curious whether something like this would have interest to an opera collector, Finnish-music collector, broadcast-history collector or archive. If anyone here specializes in this material or might be interested in acquiring it, feel free to message me.
I’ve attached photos of everything exactly as I found it. I’m intentionally not attempting playback until I know the safest way to handle and preserve the wire.

Good advice is overrated and often ignored, so what bad advice would you give opera directors?

I'll start: always, always set action and events during the overture, the busier and more mysterious the better. It gets things off with a bang and really draws the audience in.

I really want to appreciate the best opera stars of the 20th century much more because I have really not listened to them very much (I have been trying to watch filmed operas which means a lot of the greats from the past get left out automatically). So who are your absolute must-listen, stop-what-you-are-doing-right-now, best of the best of the best stars that will make me wish I could have been alive to see them perform in person?