LONDON--“Life is precious,” wrote Michael Tilson Thomas back on March 2. He was referring to his ongoing treatment for Glioblastoma Multiforme, a form of aggressive brain cancer. The conductor underwent an operation to remove what was … » Read

"Serse is not Handel’s only comic opera, as it has sometimes been described,” according to The New Grove Dictionary of Opera , with the implication that there are others. But it can more aptly be claimed that he wrote no truly comic … » Read

The Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Pan-American Music Initiative got underway in 2020 but got sidelined, like everything else, by the pandemic. Now it has taken the form of a five-year project of music from the Western Hemisphere, including the … » Read

SAN FRANCISCO--Melody was in full bloom at Davies Symphony Hall on May 5, in the first of three San Francisco Symphony concerts led by guest conductor Xian Zhang. Dvorák’s Symphony No. 9 (From the New World) alone would have been … » Read

Any new offering from composer Osvaldo Golijov is welcome after his years of silence, during which he worked on any number of projects although reportedly not to his satisfaction. Small wonder, given the success of the brilliant musical fusions … » Read

LONDON--The Britten Sinfonia’s May 4 concert at London’s Barbican Centre rather cleverly managed to celebrate the 150 th anniversary of the birth of British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams without recourse to a single note of his … » Read

ZURICH (AP) — Wotan beckoned the other gods to join him in walking to Valhalla, their new home acquired at a high and painful price. Instead of following, they shot him looks of contempt and allowed him to enter on his own. Andreas … » Read

MANCHESTER--The Hallé’s long and distinguished relationship with Ralph Vaughan Williams and his music dates back to 1944 and the first commercial recording of the Fifth Symphony, conducted by its visionary chief, Sir John … » Read

Sunday afternoon offered an opportunity to hear ten of the country's finest young voices compete for generous prize monies at the Metropolitan Opera’s Laffont Grand Finals Concert. Chosen from more than 1,100 applicants, 800 of them … » Read

NEW YORK (AP) — When Broadway’s revival of Funny Girl begins, star Beanie Feldstein sits in a Broadway dressing room, getting ready to go on. She wonders nervously to her assistant: “You ever feel like there’s someone … » Read