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

Far more classical music lovers will see Bradley Cooper’s Maestro once its available on Netflix in late December than during its current limited release in movie theaters. Those seeking a “soup to nuts” chronicle of the protean … » Read

Maria Callas’s 100th birthday on Dec. 2 became such an inescapable event in the opera world that she might as well have risen from the dead. Looking like Medea in disguise as Audrey Hepburn, Callas stared out of magazine covers, Facebook … » Read

SAN FRANCISCO—It’s all about Dido at the end of Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas , the Carthaginian queen’s grief expressed in her death-scene lament that implores us to “Remember me, but ah! Forget my fate.” … » Read