MILAN--Italy has organized an array of initiatives to mark the ongoing 700th anniversary year of Dante Alighieri’s death, but one stands out for its originality. In Padua’s lavishly frescoed Salone del Palazzo della Ragione, Il … » Read

CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK: I’ve spent the last several months editing reviews by critics who have been lucky enough to get back into the concert hall. One after another—London, Los Angeles, Paris--each reported the joy of the return, of being … » Read

SANTA MONICA – If you were an operagoer in Southern California last week, your fix of the irrational art form might have taken place in a Santa Monica parking lot at 5th St. and Arizona Ave. You would have been sitting in a row of … » Read

Conveniently timed on a night off for the Bayreuth Festspiele audience, the Internationale Siegfried Wagner Gesellschaft presented on August 21 a rare, staged performance of its namesake’s Der Friedensengel (The Angel of Peace) at the … » Read

LONDON--With the 2021 BBC Proms season drawing to a close, this August 30 concert at London’s Royal Albert Hall was a reminder of the rewardingly thoughtful programming that has typified this year’s festival. Not only was there a … » Read

In 2016, Andris Nelsons was engaged to conduct a new staging by Eric Laufenberg of Parsifal at the Bayreuth Festival, but he cancelled three weeks before it opened , reputedly over differences with Christian Thielemann, then the festival’s … » Read

Tobias Kratzer’s bold, imaginative production of Tannhäuser , which opened here in 2019 to mostly positive reviews, was revived this season with a few changes reflecting, and reflecting on, the Covid environment. As before, … » Read

BAYREUTH -- For Die Walküre , seen August 19, the vast Bayreuth stage has been turned into a giant, bright white triptych. Controversial Viennese artist Herman Nitsch, charged with creating the “artistic action” for this concert … » Read

BAYREUTH, Germany—After last summer’s lost season, the Bayreuth Festival reopened with an audacious production of Der fliegende Höllander led by Oksana Lyniv of Urkania, the first woman ever to conduct here. With strict rules in … » Read

HOLLYWOOD—“Enjoy the show,” the announcer said at curtain time Sunday night (Aug. 15) at The Ford, a cozy amphitheater tucked in the hills just across the Cahuenga Pass from Hollywood Bowl. I’m not sure, though, that … » Read