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

Opera lovers heading to Europe next season will have an embarrassment of riches. The following, new productions or European premieres outlined in a recent Times article, is a sampling. The Ring Royal Opera House launches Antonio Pappano’s … » Read

It took Robert Schumann just ten days to write his Ghost Variations ; it took 85 years for them to be published. He might have written them faster still had he not paused, on day nine, to throw his wedding ring, and then himself, into the Rhine. … » Read

Toronto’s Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra has named violinist Rachel Podger to the newly created post of principal guest director as of September 2024, for two years. She will lead three mainstage programs per season, including the … » Read

Until recently, gay characters in plays, motion pictures, novels, and even operas generally did not fare well. They were often the first to perish or to suffer unrequited love in more serious works—e.g., the plays of Tennessee Williams. … » Read