NEW YORK (AP) — Grace Bumbry, a pioneering mezzo-soprano who became the first Black singer to perform at Germany’s Bayreuth Festival during a career of more than three decades on the world’s top stages, has died. She was 86. … » Read

Ivo van Hove is controversial. Some love his overall work or individual productions. Others hate him/them. So even with interviews and some advance warning from his new staging of Don Giovanni in 2019 at the Paris Opera, the co-producer with the … » Read

Menahem Pressler, legendary pianist, chamber musician, and pedagogue, died on May 6 at the age of 99. “Mr. Pressler was a brilliant pianist, extraordinary teacher and gentle soul who has left an indelible mark on generations of pianists … » Read

The recent policy and funding reversals on the part of the BBC and Arts Council England (ACE) are not to believed. It’s no “time to breathe a sigh of relief,” opines journalist and critic Andrew Mellor, who sees in the … » Read

After two years of on and off negotiations , filings with the National Labor Relations Board, and other forms of discontent, the musicians of the Springfield (MA) Symphony Orchestra have signed a two-year agreement with their employer, … » Read

On May 4 Ukrainian violinist Dmytro Udovychenko won first prize at the Concours Musical International de Montréal with his performance of Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No.1. The 23-year-old native of Kharkiv received CAD30,000 cash, … » Read

LONDON—Raw poetry doesn’t always make a coherent stage work, but Carol Ann Duffy’s The World’s Wife is a bracing exception. Her scabrous, thought-provoking, and frequently witty 1999 collection exploring women sidelined by … » Read

As fundraising and architect selection continues apace for the new $300 million Sarasota Performing Arts Center (SPAC), news arrives that the Sarasota Orchestra has just closed on the purchase of a 32-acre site for a new, um, performing arts … » Read

The Washington National Opera’s (WNO) upcoming premiere of Grounded , an opera exploring the psychological toll of drone warfare, has come under fierce criticism because the military contractor General Dynamics was identified in promotional … » Read

Opera in the Ozarks, a summer training program and festival that this year runs June 23 to July 21, has received $34 million from the Walton Family Foundation to build a new, 300-seat theater. Founded in 1950, based in Eureka Springs, AK, OiO has … » Read