Alexander Neef is to succeed Stephane Lissner as director of the Paris Opera starting with the 2021-22 season. The 45-year-old Neefhas been general director of the Canadian Opera Company since June 2008. He became artistic director of the Santa … » Read

The Florentine Opera Company’s chorus master of 40 years, Scott S. Stewart, is stepping down. It’s a move no doubt related to the arrival of  new General Director and CEO Maggey Oplinger last March and her first appointee, … » Read

Allan Ulrich, San Francisco-based arts critic admired for his erudite opinions, died on July 22 at the age of 78. The cause was cancer. Born in New York, raised in Montreal, Ulrich was an active Bay Area free-lancer before joining the staff of … » Read

William Graziosi [pictured], whose appointment as general manager of Teatro Regio in April of 2018 prompted Gianandrea Noseda to resign after 11 years as music director, has fallen out of favor. Pending approval by the Italian Culture Minister, … » Read

Hugh Southern, British-born deputy chair of the National Endowment for the Arts from 1982-89, then NEA acting chair (briefly) then Met Opera general manager (even more briefly), died on July 15 in Leesburg, VA. He was 87; his wife reports the … » Read

The legal troubles of David Daniels, the internationally acclaimed countertenor and University of Michigan (UM) opera professor, have gotten worse. An accusation that Daniels and his husband, Scott Walters, raped a Rice University student in 2010 … » Read

Bassoonist and MA Top 30 Pro Lecolion Washington ’s latest gig—recording Hans Zimmer’s score for Disney’s remake of The Lion King on the Sony Studios lot in Los Angeles—was a departure from his usual fare. The … » Read

MILAN--As previously reported , Fabio Luisi has resigned as music director of Florence's Maggio Musicale, due to the power struggle over exiting Intendant Cristiano Chiarot (who hired Luisi in 2018), Florence Mayor Dario Nardella, and … » Read

In Venezuela to speak out against the Maduro government is to risk immediate incarceration, as a young musician discovered in June. After being dismissed from the National Philharmonic, 25-year-old clarinetist Karen Palacios fired off an angry … » Read

The Seattle Opera (SO) has taken a step to ensure that issues of race and gender inform its programming by appointing its first Scholar-in-Residence. Naomi André is a trained singer with a PhD in musicology from Harvard and currently a … » Read