Among high-profile music (as opposed to film) critics, opinions of Bradley Cooper’s Maestro are mostly positive, or “pretty good” as Mark Swed writes in the Los Angeles Times . Cooper’s commitment to getting the story … » Read

CHICAGO—Like bringing up politics at a family dinner, tinkering with a classic-among-classics like Handel’s Messiah is guaranteed to crack some unbridgeable divides. Hark, then, ye skeptics, to Sir Andrew Davis’s twist on the … » Read

The Los Angeles Philharmonic is an organization in transition—with an interim chief executive and a soon-to-depart music director. But, argues Los Angeles Times classical music critic Mark Swed, the orchestra has just completed “the … » Read

BERGEN, Norway—An opera where tonality and dissonance grind against each other for 105 malignant minutes might be expected to wear an audience down, yet Elektra is surprisingly stirring. This is because Richard Strauss was a master at … » Read

BRISBANE, Australia—“Sometimes you have to go backwards to go forwards,” said director Chen Shi-Zheng in explaining his vision for the Opera Australia (OA) Ring cycle in Brisbane. This production, originally planned for 2020 and … » Read

NEW YORK—Handel’s opera Rodelina can hardly be called a rarity, but lately it has turned up with remarkable frequency in the New York area. In March of last year, the Metropolitan Opera revived it in Stephen Wadsworth’s 2004 … » Read

LONDON—As chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra for a decade, Sakari Oramo has made a major contribution to British music. A December 8 concert at London’s Barbican Centre found him on his other home turf in an … » Read

CHICAGO—And to think it all started as a group chat. Jessie Montgomery [Musical America’s 2023 Composer of the Year ] is beginning her final season as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Mead Composer-in-Residence, whose … » Read

MILAN—December 7 is a city holiday in Milan, which celebrates the feast day of its patron, Saint Ambrose. For decades now, the date has been marked by opening night at the Teatro alla Scala, Italy’s leading opera house, which throws a … » Read

CHICAGO—Challenges don’t seem to intimidate Lidiya Yankovskaya, music director of Chicago Opera Theater since 2017. And there was no lack of challenges in the company’s most recent production, Shostakovich’s satirical … » Read