LOS ANGELES – The ovation for James Conlon at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion was loud and long as he slipped into the pit to conduct Mozart’s The Magic Flute on June 21. That it was louder for Conlon than it would be for any of his … » Read

CHICAGO—Haymarket Opera Company, Chicago’s resident purveyor of Baroque opera, usually works its magic in fully staged period productions. With exquisite costumes and hand-painted flats depicting serene gardens or imposing throne … » Read

LONDON—In 1876, all the world and his wife flocked to Bayreuth to marvel at the premiere staging of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen . One hundred and fifty years on and the global appetite appears undimmed for this four-opera … » Read

SAN FRANCISCO—The murder weapon is already on display before it actually gets used in Keith Warner’s Elektra . Initially seen at San Francisco Opera in 2017 and revived by Anja Kühnhold, Warner’s riveting production sets … » Read

John Adams’s presence as a composer at Ojai 2026 was as pervasive as music director Esa-Pekka Salonen’s throughout much of the weekend. Indeed, one each of Adams’s screwball “trickster” pieces closed three … » Read

LONDON—As with London buses, so with the operas of Monteverdi. You wait ages to catch one and then two come along at once. A pair of them hit England’s summer festival stages over the same June weekend in a clash of diaries (as well … » Read

OJAI, CA – Like Brigadoon, the small California town of Ojai comes to life once a year on a single weekend in June with an improbably durable, world-class music festival. This time, it was observing its 80th year, part of a continuous … » Read

The June 12 Lincoln Center premiere of Glenn Branca’s Symphony No. 13 ( Hallucination City ) for 100 Guitars was haunted by the ghost of a New York City that no longer exists. Branca emerged in the experimental scene of early 1980s … » Read

MILAN—An icon of bohemian Paris in the heart of the city’s red-light district, the Moulin Rouge opened in 1889 and has been synonymous with nightlife and spectacle ever since. The club, which gave birth to the can-can at the turn of … » Read

CHICAGO—Sometimes having a formula is a very wise move. Not as an excuse to phone it in or justify stale routine. Chicago’s Grant Park Orchestra, which opened its 91 st season last week in downtown Chicago’s Jay Pritzker … » Read