Brendan Latimer

Parterre Box • 30th April 2026

Bloodless revolution

A holographic castle emerges from the abyss, rotating slowly, glowing gold as through a mist. The proscenium arch, a Klimtian mosaic of gold tiles, glints in the footlights. A murmur of strings groans from the pit. The auditorium’s interior, a sleek Scandinavian design of blonde wood and beige seating, seemed innocuous enough before the show, but now the lights are down. We’re deep in the bowels of some empty, dank, dark lair. Suddenly, a white light burns through portcullis bars to reveal a pai...

Parterre Box • 27th April 2026

The night is dark and full of terrors

On Wednesday night, Opera Baltimore concluded its season with a semi-staged production of Claude Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande at the Engineer’s Club in Mount Vernon, Baltimore. I was skeptical whether Debussy’s score, which, in full orchestra, shimmers like sunlight on a lake, would come off in piano reduction. I couldn’t have been more mistaken. Pianist-conductor Husan Chun-Novak’s playing was an achievement in a night filled with them, startling in its immediacy, filling the space with grave...

Parterre Box • 26th March 2026

Road shows

(Interviews have been lightly edited for clarity.)
On a snowy night in New York in 2011, Eric Einhorn gathered a few musician friends in his apartment to discuss a very impractical idea. Einhorn was feeling restless. Then an assistant director at the Met with a freelance directing business, he wanted to distinguish himself from the small, theater-based companies flourishing on the NYC-metro opera scene. The group discussed putting on a show in an unusual setting with all the trappings of a conve...

Parterre Box • 7th March 2026

This wine tastes funny

Photo: Opera Baltimore


This Wednesday, Opera Baltimore presented a semi-staged concert version of Lucrezia Borgia, a lesser performed work containing some of Gaetano Donizetti’s finest tunes. Lucrezia Borgia is the company’s second of three shows this season, including Puccini’s Tosca last October and culminating next month in Debussy’s Pelleas et Melisandre. The theme of this season – “Power, Passion, and the Price of Truth” – is provocative. I was keen to know how the artistic direction wou...

Parterre Box • 2nd March 2026

A cross to bear

Ascending the elevator to Winspear Opera House in Dallas, Texas, feels like climbing into a giant glass spaceship. Floor to ceiling windows tower above its atrium, and the glowing red interior exudes a sleek, Death Star charm. Dallas Opera’s Don Carlo promised a true spectacle, boasting a starry cast and a house renowned for its acoustics. Staff at all levels were courteous, kind, and accommodating. Attendees ranged from young students to stylish hipsters to white-haired grandees. Sequins sparkl...

Parterre Box • 24th October 2025

“By boycotting us, you are killing art”

Interviews have been lightly edited for clarity.
On a cold, late autumn day in Parma, 1869, Giuseppe Verdi and his wife, Giuseppina Strepponi, were out shopping for bowls. The composer was handling earthenware when he heard the sing-song voice of a vendor hawking cooked pears on the street. “Verdi’s face suddenly lit up with one of those flashes that often blazed in his eyes,” Stefano Sivelli wrote. “[He] rapidly scribbled a few lines in his notebook, returned merrily to the counter, and accepte...

Parterre Box • 1st August 2025

A lion in winter

Late at night, headphones on, covers drawn to my chin, I’d thrill to the voice as if it were my own. I was 10 years old. The opera was the1978 RCA recording of Verdi’s Otello, and the baritone – roaring over James Levine’s fortissimo conducting – transformed into a larger-than-life character, sweetly goading here, bluff and muscular there, obliterating and dominant still elsewhere.
Then my dad showed me a production. This same baritone – with close-set eyes, long nose, mane of brown hair, and a...

The Baltimore Banner • 5th July 2025

Letter: Orioles games are too loud, and high volumes are harmful

Mark Fine, the new marketing guru for the O’s, cited “fan surveys” that suggest patrons of Camden Yards yearn to be bludgeoned with more sound than they already are (The Orioles can feel like the away team at Camden Yards. A new team exec is trying to change that, June 23, 2025). But, if the O’s seek to boost attendance, polluting the park with more noise will only push people away.The Orioles throttle back the din for Autism Awareness Night — which is great. But it also reveals the exclusionary...