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ENO's Merry Widow is big, brash, and more than a touch juvenile – but it's the most fun one can have at the opera.

Cast and choir snaked and kicked their legs through the aisles of the hall – picking up audience members along the way – leading to a riotous on-stage dance.

Returning stars and high-profile company debuts contributed panache to the energy-charged atmosphere.

A new bel canto opera, a pro football team, and the future of American Opera--all in a day's work for Heggie, McNally, DiDonato, and von Stade.

There was a nod to John Adams in the score, but also a kind of edgy Americana, complete with powerful writing for male chorus, and an attempt to communicate the flavor of rural North Carolina, not far from where Higdon grew up.

Only the slightest of quibbles with a fun, frothy new production of The Merry Widow at The Met. 

The new Barber of Seville at the Lyric Opera, brought to life by the director Rob Ashford, set designer Scott Pask, and conductor Michele Mariotti, is not only intelligent and imaginative but also strings successions of images, gestures, and sung moments into truly satisfying large-scale forms.

Iain Bell’s new opera A Harlot’s Progress, premièred at the Theater an der Wien this month, has much going for it. Its chances for making it into modern repertory are good – if people can handle the depressing plot.

What does any theatergoer want from a stage musical? For starters, beautiful singing, solid acting, striking costumes, clever direction, and characters to love and to loathe. A melodic score with a few toe-tappers and a smart book and lyrics. The new production of Camelot presented at the Glimmerglass Festival is that theatergoer’s dream – a crowning glory, a royal treat.

The bits of conversation I overheard during intermission and in the aisles after the world première of Mark Adamo’s The Gospel of Mary Magdalene at San Francisco Opera were assorted variations of “so, what did you think?” World premières are, indeed, auspicious occasions that privilege first-nighters to experience the work before anyone else has molded or influenced their thoughts about it.

While musicals are normally outside the purview of major symphony orchestras, fans of Rodgers and Hammerstein can only be grateful for the New York Philharmonic’s beautiful staging of Carousel, currently onstage at Avery Fisher Hall.

When I heard that Nathan Gunn was opening Washington National Opera’s 2012-13 season Celebrity Series, I could not be more excited. Indeed, this American baritone, known in the musical world as “the opera divo”, represents everything that today’s opera fans look for in a singer: a beautiful voice, first-class acting, an appealing physique and of course, a great sense of humor.

In keeping with its summer season of novelties, San Francisco Opera have produced a new English-language production of Mozart's The Magic Flute. Advertisements for the production showed baritone Nathan Gunn in a green, full-body leotard as a sort of frogman of a Papageno, leaping in the air and wearing a manic expression.

Read our review of Guy Joosten's production of Gounod­'s Roméo et Juliette in its 2007 broadcast from the Met Opera in New York.

Read our review of Julie Traymor's production of Mozart­'s Magic Flute in its 2006 broadcast from the Met Opera in New York.

Wahrscheinlich eine der besten Don Giovanni-Inszenierungen aller Zeiten; mit Sicherheit die lustigste.

Oper? Reality Show? Lotte de Beer inszeniert Bizets Perlenfischer als herrliche Dschungelcamp-Satire. Diana Damrau, Dmitry Korchak und Nathan Gunn beeindrucken unter der Leitung von Jean-Christophe Spinosi.