The Vargas Blog

For Peter Gelb the new production of Giuseppe Verdi 's Attila might just be the pinnacle of his tenure thus far at the MET. It is a s...

What if World War II had come to an explosive end not in Hitler's bunker in shattered Berlin, but in a movie theater in Nazi occupied Fr...

The Bacchae is perhaps Euripides ' s greatest tragedy, and it is currently running as the second offering in this summer's Free Sha...

When it seemed that it was impossible to get a ticket to the sold out run of Phèdre at the Lyttelton auditorium of The National Theatre i...

LONDON, UK -- The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden is having a winning summer season this year. Between performances of Tosca with Bryn T...

There are two scenes in Michael Mann 's new film Public Enemies that stand out because of their complexity and interesting points of vi...

The Roundabout Theatre Company has a hit on their hands with a superb production of Samuel Beckett 's masterpiece Waiting for Godot pl...

Rolando Villazón did not sing the broadcast of Gaetano Donizzeti 's L'Elisir d'Amore at the MET yesterday afternoon. The of...

There is a very cute payoff at the end of Mary Zimmerman 's new production of Vincenzo Bellini 's La Sonnambula at The Metropolitan...

The current revival of Lucia di Lammermoor , at the Metropolitan Opera , sold out months ago when subscribers saw that the MET was bringing ...

Once upon a time, operatic audio recordings would unite the world's greatest singers into make-believe studio productions that introduce...

A few weeks ago I was invited by Per-Erik Skramstad , the webmaster of Wagneropera.net , to submit my choices for favorite important and inf...

It's Groundhog Day at The Metropolitan Opera -- all over again. Illnesses and tenor replacements in the opera Tristan und Isolde have ...

This was sent to me today, and I thought that it would be appropriate to post here. Here is some of the musical backstage drama that occurr...

The commentary that I hear most often by New York seasoned opera goers is that the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra is a well-oiled machine. ...

When Argentinian-born Israeli pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim leads a world-class orchestra, the performance immediately becomes a h...

The Metropolitan Opera has not staged La Damnation de Faust since the beginning of the twentieth century (1906); however, this season the ...

I was very happy to find out this week that the opera Nixon in China is finally coming to The Metropolitan Opera . John Adams 's first...

Doctor Atomic is the third major work for the operatic stage by composer John Adams . It was given its world premiere at the San Francisco...

In Darren Aronofsky 's sentimental new film The Wrestler , which closed this year's 46th annual New York Film Festival last night, ...