When stars collide, expect fireworks. That was certainly the case January 28 when Carnegie’s Zankel Hall bore witness to the stellar conjunction of pre-eminent German composer Jörg Widmann and ICE, America’s outstanding new music … » Read

LEEDS—Kurt Weill’s 1949 urban tragedy falls between two generic stools and has been made to suffer for it. Is it opera or musical theater? What kind of voice does it need, classically trained or Broadway belter? Does music drive the … » Read

LOS ANGELES –-The events, personalities and issues of the 1960s—the riots, the assassinations, the Beatles, drugs, free love, Vietnam, feminism, black power, etc.—have been publicized so much as to nearly lose their power to … » Read

The greatest operas are those in which outstanding music is wed to a powerful, poetic libretto. Contemporary examples include John Adams’s work with Alice Goodman ( Nixon in China , The Death of Klinghoffer ), or George Benjamin’s … » Read

If it’s January it must be Prototype. Now in its eighth year, New York’s laboratory for original opera and music theater works goes from strength to strength, a combination of artistic savvy, raw passion, and a feeling for the … » Read

For opera to retain its relevance today it needs to be either timely or timeless. Alban Berg’s Wozzeck (1925), based on Georg Büchner’s Woyzeck , one of the most ahead-of-its-time plays ever written, happens to be both. An … » Read

For those tired of the seasonal same old, same old, The Crossing’s Christmas offering might not have looked that festive on paper, but it certainly gave pause for thought. For its December 21 concert in the atmospheric surrounds of the … » Read

SAN FRANCISCO--Much like those of past eras, today’s opera composers often concern themselves with themes of injustice and the abuse of power. Mila , a new chamber opera by composer Eli Marshall and librettist Candace Chong, depicts the … » Read

Der Rosenkavalier  returned to the Metropolitan Opera on Friday evening (Dec. 13) bringing with it two World War I-vintage cannons implausibly positioned in the reception hall of a Viennese townhouse. It was producer Robert Carsen’s … » Read

Mozart was five when he started composing and for a decade his works were firmly in the style of contemporaries like Johann Christian Bach. At the other end of the spectrum is Erich Wolfgang Korngold whose compositional fingerprints were pretty … » Read