In its U.S. debut at Carnegie Hall, the exuberant Teatro Real Orchestra wasn’t leaving the stage until it was good and ready: With an already-generous program, the addition of two encores made the Sept. 15 concert unfurl beyond the … » Read

With the start of its season on Sept. 22, the leadership transition at the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (ASO) is complete. Nathalie Stutzmann is the new music director, replacing Robert Spano, who held the position for two decades. Joining her as … » Read

The Marriage of Figaro is essentially about the boundaries social class establishes and how people choose to challenge them. To relocate the opera’s action to British colonial India, as the San Jose Opera’s new production of … » Read

NEW YORK (AP) — The Phantom of the Opera, Broadway’s longest-running show, is scheduled to close in February 2023, the biggest victim yet of the post-pandemic softening in theater attendance in New York. The musical — a fixture … » Read

Lorenz Nasturica-Herschcowici, full-time concertmaster of the Munich Philharmonic for over 30 years, has left his position. In what the German Ministry of Culture describes as an amicable separation, he stepped down from the role at the end of … » Read

The Japan Art Association, under the honorary patronage of HIH Prince Hitachi, has announced its 2022 Praemium Imperiale Award winners as Polish pianist Krystian Zimerman, along with Chinese artist, activist and filmmaker Ai Weiwei, German … » Read

One of the people most important to the success of John Adams’s new opera Antony and Cleopatra is invisible to the audience. Before the curtain rises on every performance, Matthew Piatt climbs up a metal ladder under the stage of San … » Read

FRANCE & SPAIN--The Ravel Festival’s three weeks of late summer offerings took place in a range of Basque Country locales—in a farmhouse in the Spanish resort town of San Sebastian, on September 3 [see The Ravel Festival, Part I … » Read

On the night of March 10, Sergiy Ivanchuk, an aspiring Ukrainian opera singer, was helping fellow civilians flee the Russian assault on Kharkiv when he was shot five times. That he survived was a miracle; one of the four fleeing passengers in his … » Read

FRANCE & SPAIN— Almost as old as the Pyrenees Mountains that loom above it, the Basque community nestles in the crook where southwest France meets the north coast of Spain. The Basques are fiercely proud and protective of their ancient … » Read