When the headline in Italy’s leading daily translates as “Placido Domingo, flop at the Verona Arena: the orchestra refuses to stand up for the final applause ,” it's pretty clear that a certain aging tenor turned self-imagined … » Read

Attendance at the 2022 Salzburg Festival would have been record-setting but for four program cancellations for public health reasons. With 96 percent of all seats occupied and a revenue jump of 16 percent over the previous year, only the last … » Read

Anna the opera star is back onstage in certain cities—Verona, Paris, Vienna, and Cologne among them--but not without protest in the streets. Having supported Putin’s 2012 presidential election and made no effort to distance herself … » Read

During the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s current nine-city European tour, French pianist Hélène Grimaud joined the ensemble to perform music by Ravel at a concert in Hamburg’s famous Elbphilharmonie. The following day … » Read

One of the major events of the international opera season has undergone a significant disruption, with Daniel Barenboim, now 79, having to pull out from the Berlin Staatsoper Unter den Linden’s new Ring for health reasons. He has been … » Read

Pianist Gabriela Montero follows her own creative muse, with a flourishing career as both classical virtuoso and talented improviser. Her contrapuntally rich fantasies on themes (often suggested by audience members) have been captured on her 2006 … » Read

On Aug. 27 Michael Tilson Thomas (MTT) conducted the penultimate concert of the summer season at Tanglewood with a performance one critic characterized as “another milestone in the institution’s rich history.” In March MTT had … » Read

The harp, an instrument long associated with female musicians and a standard classical repertoire, is undergoing a transformation as gender roles are redefined and new works are introduced. In a conversation for Van Magazine , Parker Ramsay … » Read

Bas Sheve ( Bathsheba ), one of the few pre-Holocaust Yiddish operas performed in Europe, enjoyed an unprepossessing, low budget premiere in Warsaw in May of 1924. Its composer Henech Kon provided a piano accompaniment and also sang the bass … » Read

The Baryshnikov Arts Center (BAC) has named Sonja Kostich as its new executive director, effective in mid-October 2022 after board approval. She succeeds Cora Cahan, the organization's president and CEO from October 2019 and credited with … » Read