Find articles | Robert Levine

Good Butterflys are not that difficult to come by but great ones are very very rare. Ailyn Pérez fits the bill in this revival of Anthony Minghella’s classic staging. 

Back to Catfish Row for another revival of The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess and James Robinson’s show continue to wow our writer. 

Opera lovers’ favorite roué is back at the Met, with the charismatic Ryan Speedo Green taking on the title role.

Bedřich Smetana’s patriotic opera Dalibor is given a rare outing at Bard College, directed by Jean-Romain Vesperini and conducted by Leon Botstein. 

The Argentinian countertenor brings a program of music performed by famed castrato Giovanni Battista Velluti to L'Alliance. 

Claus Guth's new production at the Metropolitan Opera, originally seen at the Bolshoi in 2021, moves the action from biblical Judea to the era of the opera's composition. 

Exceptional singing enlivens a flawed production, which takes liberties with the tone and tenor of Beethoven's sole opera.

Continuing their Carnegie Hall mini-residency, Klaus Mäkelä and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra dive into late Romantic works by Schoenberg and Mahler.

Nézét-Séguin takes a thoroughly veristic approach in the pit. Lise Davidsen's marmoreal nobility may not be perfectly suited to the title role, but oh Lord, the voice!

The first new Forza at the Met for nearly 30 years is lustily sung, led by Norwegian soprano, Lise Davidsen, and Igor Golovatenko as her vengeful brother. 

The Metropolitan Opera premieres Florencia en el Amazonas by Mexican composer Daniel Catán in an eye-catching, warm production by Mary Zimmerman. 

In New York's Park Avenue Armory, Claus Guth imagines Schubert's final song collection set in a military hospital, Jonas Kaufmann as one of its soldiers with a story to tell. 

The Metropolitan Opera makes good on its promise to present more contemporary work, opening the season with Jake Heggie's gut wrenching tale of rage and redemption. 

Peter Mattei's smooth-as-silk baritone leads a handsome cast in the Metropolitan Opera's bleak new production of Mozart's great dramma giocoso. 

The compelling story of boxer Emile Griffith's struggles with guilt and sexuality are not ideally rendered in James Robinson's new production.

Is it possible to have a minor success on every level? Kevin Puts' The Hours underwhelms in its world premiere production at the Metropolitan Opera. 

A revival for Sir David McVicar's staging from last season, but this time reverting from French to the four-act Italian version, conducted by Carlo Rizzi. 

Making her debut at the Metropolitan Opera, the wife of Met GM Peter Gelb crushes any talk of nepotism at the downbeat. 

Sir David McVicar's new production opens the Met season with house's first ever staging of Cherubini's Medea.

Bard’s always courageous Music Director, Leon Botstein, never one to shy away from a challenge, presents Strauss' comedy uncut.

Jonathan Miller's modish production returns to The Metropolitan Opera with three leads who are absolutely right. 

The Norwegian soprano is acclaimed at the Met in Richard Strauss' mash-up of commedia dell'arte and tragic opera. 

Verdi's Rigoletto in Weimar Germany? A half-baked concept, but Bartlett Sher's new production is certainly dramatic and it is gorgeously sung. 

James Robinson’s production allows the large cast of Catfish Row to interact like the old pals – almost family – that they are.

Forget Rimsky-Korsakov, forget the Polish act... Stephen Wadsworth's new production for The Met returns to Mussorgsky's original 1869 version of his Russian historical epic. 

The world could use a laugh... and Brian Garman and his team deliver belly laughs aplenty at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center. 

The first fully staged American production of Chausson's sole opera features remarkable singing, fine storytelling and plush orchestral playing.

Phelim McDermott’s Coney Island Così fan tutte returns to The Met, in sparkling vocal performances. 

Despite theatrical drawbacks, this Wozzeck is heartily recommended due to Yannick Nézet-Séguin's staggering understanding of all facets of Berg's score.

The third in the composer’s “portrait” trilogy finally arrives at The Met in Phelim McDermott's spectacular production. 

Anthony Minghella's production remains a feast for the eyes, but this performance failed to gel into a dramatic whole. 

The Met’s new production is directed by James Robinson, who has the characters interacting and listening to one another as if in real life – the inhabitants of Catfish Row have known each other for all of their lives and love, pray and grieve like family.

Craig Colclough's Don Pasquale is arrogant, boyishly hopeful, outraged and pathetic by turns, his singing free of silly buffo mannerisms, the voice grand.

The recently formed Teatro Nuovo provide fine entertainment with Bellini's rarely performed second opera.

An unforgettable evening at the Met as John Dexter's production of Poulenc's masterpiece is revived to close the season. 

A concert performance of Handel's not-quite-an-opera proves a hit on tour in New York. 

A welcome revival at the Met of Robert Carsen's witty production of Verdi's final opera. 

Mariusz Treliński's double bill pairing returns to the Metropolitan Opera with fine performances from Sonya Yoncheva and Gerald Finley in the leads. 

Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s proves the highlight of a frustrating evening at The Metropolitan Opera

Although Adriana Lecouvreur could never be referred to as one of the world’s greatest operas, Anna Netrebko, Anita Rachvelishvili and Piotr Beczała give it the star treatment at the Metropolitan Opera. 

When it comes to the title role, Bartlett Sher's non-interventionist production misses the core of the character. 

All three operas in Puccini's triptych are strongly cast in this revival. 

Mefistofele proves a mixed blessing: good meets evil, devils fight with angels, lovely lyricism alternates with bombast and second-rate material.

The cast, sets, costumes and direction of Muhly's opera Marnie impress, but the music somehow falls short of expectations.

The audience for The Met's first performance of La fanciulla del West this season arrived loaded for bear. Not only were they disappointed that Jonas Kaufmann was not singing (he's slated for shows starting 17th October), but their disappointment was heightened by the fact that tenor Yusif Eyvazov was singing.

The Met's new season opens with a new Samson et Dalila only marginally more trashy than Saint-Saëns’ peculiar brand of kitschy orientalism.

And the new, Spring casting for David McVicar's new production of Tosca has an ace in the hole – Anna Netrebko – and she certainly did not disappoint. 

Ahead of the group’s performance of Bach’s B minor Mass at Carnegie Hall, we talk to NYChoral’s Music Director David Hayes about sharpening the choir’s profile. 

Candide is a witty satiric fable, intelligent, literary but not to a fault, and vastly entertaining. Created by a team of collaborators who fell out at different times in the work’s 52 year history – at one point or another, Lillian Hellman, Richard Wilbur, John Latouche, Dorothy Parker, Stephen Sondheim and, of course, composer Leonard Bernstein had a hand in it – it is unique in the operatic or

The role of Luisa, some of the daintier coloratura aside, fits Sonya Yoncheva like a glove.