How does a soprano get ready for a big performance? For Danielle de Niese, it involves sleeping really late, vitamins, stretching, pasta and pop tunes on her iPod.

As Q2 Music focuses on new Polish music this week, Operavore bloggre and Q2 host Olivia Giovetti turns reviews Krakow-born baritone Mariusz Kwiecien's debut album, Slavic Heroes.

Many producers believe they have to give an opera a spin or a concept to make it “relevant.” That's what makes The Enchanted Island so different, writes blogger Fred Plotkin.

"The beauty of New York is that there is no shortage of opera," writes blogger Olivia Giovetti, who looks at the multitude of boutique companies giving performances in New York over the next two weeks.

Are some works better suited to different seasons? Does Mozart go best with summer breezes and Britten the budding of springtime? Blogger Olivia Giovetti looks at the psychology of opera programming.

With Plácido Domingo's newest role under his belt and the tenor's 71st birthday approaching, blogger Olivia Giovetti names her top ten picks for the next additions to his CV.

After nearly 40 years on the concert scene, German bass-baritone Thomas Quasthoff has decided to retire from singing due to health reasons.

In the latest installment of Warm Up, we talk to Roberto Alagna to see how the star tenor plays through the pain. And we get the skinny on his idiosyncratic, bilingual vocalizations.

In light of the heavy use of Schubert in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, blogger Olivia Giovetti looks at the operatic leanings of the composer's 600-plus lieder on film.

La Scala, the theater whose stage was the launching pad for a political movement that led to Italy’s becoming a nation, is still at the center of things, writes blogger Fred Plotkin.

Blogger Olivia Giovetti reviews The Enchanted Island, arguing that it may be one of the Met’s musically strongest performances in quite some time, which only underscores the pastiche's dramatic shortcomings.

Last week, René Pape broke character to deliver a devilish ad-lib in the Met's Faust. Blogger Olivia Giovetti wonders if this was "amateur hour stuff" or the continuation of a long line of operatic pranks.

Only three of the 75 works voted on in the 2011 Classical Countdown could be called operatic. Blogger Fred Plotkin considers this dearth of vocal pieces and exhorts us to "listen without prejudice."

How does Luca Pisaroni fill the torturous hours between wake-up and curtain up? Lots of naps, lots of running and lots of time with his four-legged friends. Read on for more in the latest installment of Warm Up.

In anticipation of the world premiere of The Enchanted Island, the new pasticcio (pastiche) at the Metropolitan Opera, a question emerges: just what is a pasticcio?

Sidle up to a sidecar, take a Manhattan or just unwind with a wine as blogger Olivia Giovetti gets into the New Year's spirit with her countdown of opera's ten best bar tunes.

Blogger Olivia Giovetti reflects on the abrupt closing of Opera Boston and the precedent it sets for the similarly-beleaguered New York City Opera.

Opera fans in Berlin can have their pick of three major opera houses, each with distinctive approaches to tradition. Blogger Olivia Giovetti recently sampled the offerings and gives her report.

Certain operas seem like a natural fit for holiday time, writes Fred Plotkin, from Hansel and Gretel to Rimsky-Korsakov's unjustly forgotten Christmas Eve.