MILAN--Arguably Europe’s most important cultural event, opening night at La Scala always falls on December 7, the feast day of the city’s patron saint, St. Ambrose. The usual gathering of Italian politicians, second-tier celebrities, … » Read

Did you know that the first shot from a member of the British forces in the First World War was fired by an African? And in Africa? The man was part of the British West African Frontier Force, which was in the process of invading the German … » Read

Verdi’s “lost one” found her way once again to the Metropolitan Opera on Tuesday for the sixth new production of La Traviata since the company moved to Lincoln Center in 1966. Perhaps in response to its previous staging, Willy … » Read

It’s heartening to see a fine work like Julia Wolfe’s 2015 Pulitzer prize-winning Anthracite Fields slowly but surely make its way into the repertoire. It’s also rare to hear new music that offers social comment without ramming … » Read

NAPLES, Italy—Riccardo Muti has generally steered clear of staged opera in recent years, preferring to showcase his Verdi in concert, a format perfected in Chicago and last summer in Florence and Ravenna, Italy, with Macbeth . But that … » Read

CHICAGO – If the big operas of Paul Hindemith, including Cardillac (1926) and Mathis der Maler (1935), have largely been ignored by major opera companies in recent decades, the relatively modest demands of the German composer’s … » Read

LOS ANGELES – At various points during its centennial season, the Los Angeles Philharmonic is giving prime-time exposure to Fluxus, one of the most—if not the most—controversial artistic concepts of the 1960s and `70s, and … » Read

The centenary of the end of the first world war has been marked with an outburst of cultural activity, notably Peter Jackson’s superb film They Shall Not Grow Old , which not only colorizes war footage but has used lip readers to enable … » Read

Noh theater has been fascinating the West since the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate in 1868 opened up Japan and its cultural institutions. Beckett, Yeats, and Peter Brook have all been drawn to Noh. Of its 2000 or so traditional tales, … » Read

BOSTON—The head of MIT’s Media Lab (and Musical America’s 2016 Composer of the Year) has a new opera—a labor of love, not a response to a commission. After a gestation period of some 20 years, Tod Machover’s … » Read