This image released by the Metropolitan Opera shows soprano Karita Mattila, center, Paul Corona, left, and Karen Cargill during a performance of Poulenc's "Dialogues of the Carmelites" at the ...

Anyone flipping through the galley copies of Joe Volpe’s upcoming Toughest Show on Earth: My Rise and Reign at the Metropolitan Opera will come across some tough talk about Karita Mattila’s famous ...

NEW YORK — The years take their toll on Emilia Marty. She has seen friends and lovers die, watched joy and despair come and go. But she is more jaded than most in her old age, and with good reason.

In his memoirs, Joseph Volpe, the hard-nosed former boss of the Metropolitan Opera, who battled with many divas, called Karita Mattila "one of the two most alluring stage animals among sopranos." The ...

Robert Wilson’s staging of Wagner’s “Lohengrin” opened to a wall of boos in 1998. But it brought new theatrical possibilities to the Met. By Zachary Woolfe Our critics and writers have selected ...

Simply sign up to the Life & Arts myFT Digest -- delivered directly to your inbox. The last time we saw Karita Mattila in London was the opening concert of the Southbank Centre’s The Rest is Noise ...

In Strauss’s “Salome,” is the Dance of the Seven Veils a seduction? A striptease? A cry for help? Watch some memorable versions from its long history. By Zachary Woolfe Robert Wilson’s staging of ...