LOS ANGELES—New to this company’s stage (by way of Lyric Opera of Chicago), Rossini’s The Barber Of Seville has arrived at just the right time. With turmoil in Israel, Gaza, Ukraine, and the U.S. House of Representatives, we … » Read

Absent since 2015, Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera returned to the Metropolitan Opera Friday night in an uneven revival that could have done with a few more rehearsals. The orchestra and especially the chorus had trouble keeping together under … » Read

After 47 years and thousands of concerts worldwide, playing nearly 300 compositions and recording most of them, the Emerson String Quartet has called it quits. Actually, they called it quits twice. Most immediately with the second of two … » Read

It was a long time in coming, but Georgian-French pianist Khatia Buniatishvili finally performed a solo recital in Stern Auditorium of Carnegie Hall last Thursday evening (Oct. 19), having previously made her official Carnegie debut in Weill … » Read

On Oct. 19, Michael Tilson Thomas, music director laureate of the San Francisco Symphony, led a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. It was, notes Joshua Kosman in the San Francisco Chronicle , “all too likely to be his final … » Read

How many song cycles can you think of that were conceived for a female protagonist? Most fanciers of the art of song will name Schumann’s Frauenliebe und Leben , but can they come up with others? Mezzo-soprano Kate Linsey did so in fine … » Read

Kate Soper’s new opera The Hunt , premiered Oct. 12 at Columbia University’s Miller Theater, reveals its quirky identity immediately. The three primary characters seem to have stepped out of a medieval tapestry; they have fairy-tale … » Read

Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla made her New York debut in September of 2016 conducting the Juilliard Orchestra—just as the group was coming together for the first time in the academic year. Of her subsequent local outing in 2018, leading the MET … » Read

SAN FRANCISCO—For the second week in a row, the San Francisco Symphony unveiled a world premiere of a concerto it had commissioned. The two works stand high contrast. Whereas Jesper Nordin’s violin concerto Convergence , debuted … » Read

LONDON—There’s a distinct feeling of change in the air at the London Symphony Orchestra, although Antonio Pappano is still a year away from officially taking up his new role as chief conductor. His first three programs as designate … » Read