In a season where more directorial vision is needed at certain opera houses, blogger Olivia Giovetti looks at film directors leading operas and names her top ten picks for active artists to enter virgin territory.

Laurent Pelly's Pelly’s production of Massenet's Manon, set to arrive at the Metropolitan Opera later this month, finds its inspiration in the architecture of France’s Second Empire (1852–70), writes Olivia Giovetti.

South Africa has produced some extraordinary singers but it has yet generate a major homegrown opera. Fred Plotkin considers the potential of an opera "flavored with the cadences of Afrikaans, Zulu and Xhosa."

On Sunday at 1 pm, Operavore presents a full production of The Marriage of Figaro, Mozart's hilarious and affecting opera in a production from Barcelona's Gran Teatre del Liceu.

Listen to the Operavore Stream

With what many are billing the world's first human trafficking opera opening tonight, Operavore blogger Olivia Giovetti looks at the longstanding trend of exploitation—sexual and otherwise—in the genre.

Te Kanawa, who turns 68 on Tuesday, is an example of a singer who knew how to pick roles that perfectly suited her, writes Operavore blogger Fred Plotkin.

In the wake of Vivaldi's 334th birthday, Operavore Olivia Giovetti looks at the composer's considerable vocal canon, often overlooked for his violin concertos.

"I don’t see the worlds of classical/opera and “pop”/Broadway as separated by a wall but as sitting on the same gorgeous field in different zones that sometimes overlap," writes blogger Fred Plotkin.

With this year's TED Conference underway, blogger Olivia Giovetti looks at opera's presence in the wildly popular TEDTalks and wonders what records these lectures can and/or should leave for the future.

"Curiously enough, with an all-star Russian, Ukrainian and Georgian cast, the biggest name in the Met’s revival of Mussorgsky’s Khovanshchina is a Frenchman," writes Operavore blogger Olivia Giovetti.

In the latest installment of Warm-Up, Russian bass Ildar Abdrazakov tells blogger Olivia Giovetti about how he balances a pre-show routine when starring alongside his opera star wife.

Even while absent from the conductor's podium, Music Director James Levine's presence is nonetheless still felt in The Metropolitan Opera's upcoming programs. Blogger Fred Plotkin shares his highlights.

Composer Missy Mazzoli’s world, writes Operavore Olivia Giovetti, "is a meticulously maintained Versailles of abstraction and atmosphere. It may be overwhelming to live there permanently, but it’s a hell of a place to visit." Find out why in Giovetti's review of the world premiere of Song from the Uproar, now playing at the Kitchen.

Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho is composer-in-residence at Carnegie Hall this year. Her much-admired body of work includes the operas L’Amour de loin and Adriana Mater. Blogger Fred Plotkin spoke with her about her upcoming engagement.

A regular presence on the opera stage, bass-baritone Eric Owens made his Carnegie Hall recital debut with a surprisingly dark program that featured lieder by Wolf, Schumann and Schubert.

Sipping a flavorful tea and enjoying an opera are mutually compatible activities, writes blogger Fred Plotkin. One composer has even written an opera on the subject.

Commissioned by the Met and then dropped four years ago, Rufus Wainwright's Prima Donna opened Sunday in a performance by the beleaguered New York City Opera. Blogger Olivia Giovetti gives her review.

One is a veteran artist who gets better all the time; the other is a young singer whose immense gifts and potential suggest he might achieve comparable things, writes Fred Plotkin.

With City Opera at BAM during the house's 150th anniversary, Olivia Giovetti takes a look at the Academy's longstanding relationship with opera, and notes that BAM often beat its Lincoln Center counterparts to the punch.