LONDON--The Hallé has an unrivalled relationship with the music of Edward Elgar, and with The Dream of Gerontius in particular. Not only was the oratorio’s (notoriously underprepared) 1900 premiere led by the orchestra’s then … » Read

ATHENS – The Greek National Opera (GNO) opened the annual  Athens-Epidaurus Festival   on June 1 in the 5,000-seat Odeon of Herodes Atticus, an 1,800-year-old open-air performance space at the base of the Acropolis. An annual … » Read

LONDON—The years 1851-53 found Verdi in a hot vein of inspiration. Rigoletto and La traviata are indelible masterpieces in which Bel Canto and ardent romance merge into a potent mode of operatic expression; but what of Il trovatore ? Once … » Read

LONDON—Founded in 1989 by impresario Leonard Ingrams, Garsington Opera has a well-earned reputation as one of the U.K.’s savviest summer opera festivals. Relocating in 2011 to the grounds of Wormsley Park in the lush Oxfordshire … » Read

On May 16, at St. Thomas Church Fifth Avenue, the Choir of Men and Boys (accompanied by the Orchestra of St. Luke’s) premiered its alumnus Trevor Weston’s American Lamentations , a 12-movement, 40-minute concert work confronting … » Read

GLYNDEBOURNE, East Sussex—Glyndebourne’s new Don Giovanni has divided the London critics and to be frank it has divided this critic too. Recent history is partly to blame: too many sub-par productions of an opera that has been dubbed … » Read

CHICAGO—In his final concerts as music director, Riccardo Muti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra are sampling the best of all possible orchestral worlds. True, he won’t be ending his 13-year tenure in late June with a Verdi opera; … » Read

COSTA MESA, CA – Over the decades, every Long Beach Opera regime has managed to spin new, often wild variations on what opera is and can be. It’s been that way with this congenitally radical company since the early 1980s as artistic … » Read

With its opening volley of concussive orchestral thuds and clanking percussion, Bodies on the Line: The Great Flint Sit-Down Strike delivers the assaultive sound and feel of a 1930s automobile assembly line. In doing so, this ambitious, hour-long … » Read

LONDON—Perhaps the bleakest opera of them all, certainly the most harrowing, Alban Berg’s taut, 95-minute Wozzeck is the study of one man’s decline into a terrifying inner darkness. Episodes of degradation and humiliation … » Read