This has been a summer of epic thunderstorms and steamy heat in Bayreuth, paralleling the controversy surrounding the storied festival’s future. Through four generations of Wagners, and legendary internal and external squabbles, the … » Read

Although it has remained a bastion of conservatism musically, devoting itself exclusively to the operas of Richard Wagner, productions at the annual Bayreuth  Festival have become increasingly radical and provocative under the management of … » Read

LONDON—This year’s BBC Proms have largely steered clear of the most challenging contemporary music, making this August 17 concert at the Royal Albert Hall a welcome exception. And unlike Samuel Beckett's endlessly awaited Godot, … » Read

A surprising word came to mind during a concert August 13 at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music. The occasion was the second night of Time:Spans, an annual festival of contemporary classical music. The performers were the JACK Quartet, … » Read

U.S. ensembles continue to champion new music with a trio of recent standouts. Julius Eastman Volume 3 The music of once-forgotten composer Julius Eastman, who died unremarked in a Buffalo hospital in 1990, continues to prove an especially rich … » Read

SALZBURG, Austria—The Salzburg Festival offers events in such profusion that each day can seem like a mini-festival in itself. With 179 performances (plus 34 more in its youth program) over 43 days, each day of the 2023 festival—the … » Read

LONDON--Composed in 1887, Ruddigore has suffered by comparison, sandwiched as it was between box office hits The Mikado and The Yeomen of the Guard . And whereas Gilbert and Sullivan’s operas generally won popular acclaim by skewering the … » Read

If Orfeo [reviewed yesterday] offered a return-to-origins story about the power of opera—and of live performance, imperiled on so many fronts—Santa Fe’s Tosca , viewed August 1, sought to open up some fresh angles on a wildly … » Read

SANTA FE, NM—Though its first performance was in 1607, L’Orfeo is filling the new-commission slot for this summer’s Santa Fe Opera season. The company asked Nico Muhly, whose own operas have been staged by the Met, to … » Read

LENOX, Mass.—This year’s five-day Festival of Contemporary Music (FCM) at Tanglewood proved dramatically that plenty of women are not only composing music but performing and conducting it with skill and panache. In addition, the … » Read