CHICAGO—Opera is probably the most gender-fluid performing art. Yes, Sarah Bernhardt played Hamlet in 1899, and a few years ago Glenda Jackson tackled King Lear. Male swans fill the stage in choreographer Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake . … » Read

CHICAGO—After 18 months of no live performances Friday night’s opening of Lyric Opera of Chicago’s 2021-22 season would have been a gala event in its own right. But Verdi’s Macbeth held even more resonance. It was the … » Read

LONDON -- Oliver Mears succeeded Kasper Holten as the Royal Opera’s director of opera in 2017, but advance scheduling and the pandemic has delayed his mainstage directorial debut with the company until now. With Covent Garden reopening to … » Read

Is it a day at the beach? A ship of fools? The end of the world? All such answers—and more—are appropriate to Sun & Sea , the category-defying installation (for lack of a better word) in which 13 singers lounge on … » Read

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