NEW YORK — The best that can be said for some recent Metropolitan Opera productions — “Samson et Dalila” and “Tosca,” I’m looking at you — is that they don’t actively hinder the works being performed.

Dec. 25—Opera Southwest is bringing "Mefistofele" to New Year's Eve. Composer Arrigo Boito's 1868 opera will be the concert centerpiece of the Sunday, Dec. 31, performance at the National Hispanic ...

Recorded live in October 2013, Russian bass Ildar Abdrazakov, whose "voice is massive...his singing...piping hot, precise and stinging" (San Jose Mercury News) is Mefistofele. In his staged role debut ...

In the first scene of the opera "Mefistofele," 138 singers, dancers, children and extras cram the stage, in matching white robes and matching masks. The spectacle lasts 25 minutes, and on opening ...

For a charismatic fellow who's usually cast as ne'er-do-wells--if not downright villains--and is quite good at making you love to hate him, in person, rising star bass-baritone Christian Van Horn ...

Mefistofele is an opera in a prologue, four acts and an epilogue, the only completed opera with music by the Italian composer-librettist Arrigo Boito (there are several completed operas for which he ...

SAN FRANCISCO — From the moment the devil climbs out of the pit — the orchestra pit — and onto the stage at War Memorial Opera House, one gets the sense that San Francisco Opera’s season-opening ...

When the curtain closed in March 2020, representatives of Knoxville Opera had two options: Let their sliver of the local arts scene go dark, or compose new ways to reach the community. "Our opera ...

TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. About the Archive This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online ...

From time to time, people come along whose stories are so unique and vivid that their names actually become entries in the dictionary. One prime example is Faust, who made a disastrous deal with the ...