The Vargas Blog

After much gossip, a great deal of drama, and impending portents of cancellation throughout the week, tenor Ben Heppner went ahead and sang...

The Broadway play to see last year was The Pillowman , so much so that I made sure that I got to the Booth Theater a couple of times; also, ...

Not an uptown New York law firm, but the three tenors, anyone of whom might be singing the title role in Wagner's Parsifal this Friday ...

A good friend of mine who attended the Tuesday rehearsal of Parsifal reported that Ben Heppne r did not show up and that his understudy for...

The Berlin Deutsche Oper opened on November 12, 1912 with a performance of Beethoven 's Fidelio . By 1933, the Nazis were in power and ...

This is the second time that I have heard tenor Ben Heppner 's voice crack in the middle of a Wagner opera at the MET . The first time ...

It's wonderful to experience Lohengrin again at the MET , and even more wonderful to have a chance to re-explore Robert Wilson 's u...

Here is a review of the new Götterdämmerung production at The Royal Opera, Covent Garden , from the Financial Times of London. At curtain-d...

The reviews are in for Monday's premiere of the revival of Wagner's Lohengrin at the MET. I will have my own review of this produc...

Richard Wagner is very much in the news these days. On Monday, The Metropolitan Opera revived Robert Wilson 's controversial Lohengrin ...

A new production of Götterdämmerung opened tonight at Covent Garden, London. While we wait for the reviews to be in, I thought I would re-...

If your idea of The Threepenny Opera is Bobby Darrin singing "Mack the Knife" or the early 1930's G.W. Pabst German film, t...

Here's what Anthony Tommasini had to say about the surprise debut of unknown soprano Erika Sunnegardh in the role of Leonore in Beethove...

This afternoon the MET got a much needed shot in the arm as it hosted the debut of a rising opera star: Erika Sunnegardh , who assumed the t...

Here is Anthony Tommasini's review from The New York Times: WASHINGTON, March 26 — If you put on a production of Wagner's monumental...

Here is the Washington Post review of the new production of Das Rheingold at the Washington National Opera. "A Rheingold that Stands o...

Tonight the Washington Opera premieres its much awaited production of Das Rheingold , the work which kicks off the company's first stagi...

The performance of La Forza del Destino that I attended on March 18 was as good as anything I have seen at the MET in quite a while. It was...

Washington Opera to give Wagner's "Ring" a New, American Setting By Tim Page -- The Washington Post One test of a masterpiece ...

Next Saturday, the Washington Opera will unveil its eagerly awaited new production of The Ring of the Nibelung. Das Rheingold , the first ...