LONDON—While Bernstein’s Candide (1956) is a musical that aspires to be an operetta, Franz Léhar’s Die Lustige Witwe (1905) looks in the opposite direction. Operetta, musical… what’s in a name? It’s a … » Read

The Metropolitan Opera made partial amends for the absence from its stage this season of two outstanding female singers previously active there, soprano Lisette Oropesa and mezzo-soprano Elina Garanca. The two were featured in two Carnegie Hall … » Read

The Los Angeles Philharmonic’s recent concert at London’s Barbican Center left one veteran music critic yearning for some “real musical satisfaction.” In a program that tried to do too much, writes Ian Hewitt in The … » Read

LONDON—The 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings offered plenty of opportunities here in the U.K to hear Elgar’s Nimrod , a piece of music regularly associated with national remembrance. Equally inviting was a chance to hear it in … » Read

OJAI, CA—Since the 1980s, the Ojai Festival has had a different music director every year, with only the artistic director remaining in place year-round (currently it’s Ara Guzelimian). As a result there have been wide swings in … » Read

Once the rock star of the avant-garde, the blonde, charismatic Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928-2007) has been fading toward invisibility in the U.S. The Park Avenue Amory's presentation of Inside Light, taken from the composer's gargantuan cycle of … » Read

On June 7 in David Geffen Hall, Jaap van Zweden conducted the second of three performances of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 ( Resurrection ), his swansong as music director of the New York Philharmonic. (He conducts the orchestra again presently … » Read

SAN FRANCSICO—With the downstage platform of Davies Hall cleared for the Alonzo King LINES Ballet dancers in the first half of the program and a Peter Sellars-directed monodrama in the second, conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen appeared to be … » Read

LONDON—When reviewing live music it helps to witness a performance from a good seat. This, dear reader, is not because journalists somehow deserve the best, but because you do. A critic's primary task is to serve as your eyes and ears: to … » Read

In past seasons, Spoleto Festival USA has mounted a mix of new and old operas, many of them critically praised and several new ones performed around the country. The 2024 edition of the festival offered only one premiere— Ruinous Gods by … » Read