In December, László Krasznahorkai became only the second Hungarian writer to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature; Imre Kertész was the first, in 2002. Although the 71-year-old author is critical of the right-wing Hungarian … » Read

Bellini’s I puritani is a musical feast, as the cast of the Met’s new staging, seen at its New Year’s Eve premiere, amply demonstrated. But it is by no means an exemplary piece of musical drama, which this production, by … » Read

In October, l'Opéra Orchestre Normandie Rouen posted on YouTube its recent staging of  La traviata (Sept.30-Oct. 7) . The word-of-mouth that followed reached my inbox, so I investigated: The immediacy of Chelsea Lehnea’s … » Read

One way to guarantee an electoral victory is to change the voting rules. That appears to have been the strategy deployed to add DT’s name to a “rebranded” Kennedy Center by a “unanimous” vote of the Center’s … » Read

Although Philadelphia’s Academy of Music is the nation’s oldest continually operating opera house, New Orleans can rightfully claim the mantle of being the first. The long-since-destroyed Théâtre d’Orléans … » Read

Stephen Schwartz, best known as the composer of Wicked , along with Pippin, Godspell, and portions of Bernstein’s Mass , which opened the Kennedy Center in 1971, has cancelled his appearance at the Washington National Opera gala in May. The … » Read

Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s path to the Vienna Philharmonic’s New Year’s Day concert started when he replaced a banned Russian conductor at New York’s Carnegie Hall in 2022 with the help of a pianist who traveled … » Read

The slowly disappearing San Antonio Philharmonic, which recently axed its Holiday Pops programs , has also been forced to cancel the Jan. 16 and 17 performances of the Classics 5 program featuring Katherine Balch’s 2023 work Musica Pyralis … » Read

When “The Egg,” the brutalist concrete oval that dominates the Albany skyline, opened in 1978, it was intended to serve as a general-purpose auditorium for government meetings—hence its original name, The Meeting Place. Inspired … » Read

Once DT slapped his name on the Kennedy Center, what had been a trickle of cancellations after his self-appointed board  voted him chairman last Februrary, turned into a flood. First, folk singer Kristy Lee announced she had canceled a … » Read