Loony or lascivious? That is the dilemma, argues critic Joshua Kosman, posed by the Venetian composer Francesco Cavalli’s 1667 opera Eliogabalo . Presented by the West Edge Opera at the outdoor Bruns Amphitheater in Orinda, CA, through Aug. … » Read

For months now, intrepid presenters of opera have dared to break the silence imposed by the coronavirus—always cautiously and sometimes to houses purposely empty—by offering live performances. Only this week, however, did full-scale … » Read

VERBIER, Switzerland—Still convalescing after the lost summer of 2020, the Swiss festival’s ambitious recovery festival has been hampered by travel-thwarted cancellations and Covid-related withdrawals. Most critical among the latter … » Read

LENOX, MA--No nation has contributed more to film art and its industry than America, and no one has composed more hit film scores than John Williams. The elegant 89-year-old Boston Pops conductor laureate returned last week to Tanglewood, summer … » Read

SANTA FE--The new production of  The Marriage of Figaro , seen on July 23, takes its cue from the polymathic talents of Pierre Augustin Beaumarchais, the French author of the opera’s literary source. In addition to writing plays, his … » Read

SANTA FE--Among the nation’s opera companies that are cautiously coming back, the Santa Fe Opera is the first major one to launch a season that looks pretty close to normal. In addition to the world premiere of John Corigliano and Marc … » Read

SANTA FE, NM--Of all the mythological subjects to furnish material for operas, the story of Dionysus’s revenge against the city of Thebes and its ruler, as memorialized in Euripides’s drama  The Bacchae , may well be the most … » Read

It’s hard to believe Orpheus Chamber Orchestra is turning 50 next year. There’s something eternally youthful about its limber sound, and something that still smacks of the teenage renegade about the famously … » Read

One of the pleasures of the first lockdown was the inaugural series of Aaron Cohen’s “Embrace Everything—The World of Gustav Mahler,” a podcast that stood out from the crowd, both in its bold approach to the vastness of … » Read

Triumph and tragedy, hubris and humility, the forbidding expanse of the Himalayas and the yawning darkness of troubled souls. Everest , a 2015 opera by composer Jody Talbot and librettist Gene Scheer, encompasses all this and more and does so in … » Read