SALZBURG—In the opening production of the 2018 Salzburg Festival, The Magic Flute , Tamino makes his entrance by climbing through a window into a bedroom, where a grandfather is reading to three grandsons. The story happens to be that of … » Read

BAYREUTH, GERMANY—Anyone going to the Bayreuth Festival or the Salzburg Festival is advised to check what is going on in nearby Munich, where the Bayerische Staatsoper’s Munich Opera Festival usually ends shortly after the first two … » Read

How might we tune our overactive 21st-century antennae into the vast, underlying rhythm of nature? While climate change, though catastrophic, moves at a glacial (pardon the pun) pace and a radioactive isotope takes 40 million years to decay by … » Read

SANTA FE—During the long reign of founder John Crosby, Santa Fe Opera cultivated its reputation as a “Strauss house.” Yet only three of the composer’s operas had been presented under the company’s third general … » Read

The countryside of Fukushima Prefecture is reminiscent of the Berkshires in Western Massachusetts: lush greenery, rolling hills, and cool, misty mornings, the high altitude providing some relief from the heat wave that enveloped Japan in July. … » Read

Glyndebourne wraps up its season as it began it – rectifying an omission. After the 80-year wait for the company’s first Madama Butterfly, last May, it presented Samuel Barber’s Vanessa for the first time on August 5. Vanessa is … » Read