A year-end fund-raising appeal from the Chicago Opera Theater led to the discovery that industry veteran Henry Fogel is serving as the company’s interim general director while Ashley Magnus is on maternity leave. Fogel, on … » Read

The passing of the pandemic has done little to relieve financial pressure on the Metropolitan Opera, which has announced measures designed to counter declining ticket sales and a cash shortfall. Chief among them is the immediate withdrawal of up … » Read

Colorado’s Central City Opera is at odds with AGMA (American Guild of Musical Artists) about what is and is not covered in their contract. Local media reports charges of “withheld artist payments, refusals to bargain in good faith, … » Read

Despite its owner’s decision to cease operations at the end of the current season, the Philly Pops may not be lost altogether. There is promising news on two fronts: One, musicians and management have come to a tentative agreement on … » Read

A holiday-musings article in The New York Times suggests that America needs its own comic opera company, something along the lines of Berlin’s famed Komische Oper or the Opéra Comique in Paris. Suggested repertoire includes Kurt … » Read

John Adams’s opera-oratorio El Niño - Nativity Reconsidered has always felt imposing, immense, and possibly something that could be a Christmas concert piece. Which could be one reason why the enterprising soprano Julia Bullock has … » Read

“I staged the opera in a slaughterhouse, where animals are locked-up and whose destiny is nothing else but death. The slaughterhouse thus becomes a metaphor for all the prisons and places where humanity has been brutalized and tortured … » Read

Elayne Jones, a timpanist reputed to be the first Black principal player in a major American orchestra, died on Dec. 17 at her home in California. She was 94. Born on Jan. 30, 1928, in Harlem, Jones was the only child of immigrants from Barbados … » Read

Plans for a new Sarasota Performing Arts Center have run afoul of the grandchildren of Lewis Van Wezel, the primary funder of the 54-year-old Van Wezel Hall. Ironically, their opposition to the plan has put them at odds with the members of the … » Read

In what on first glance feels like a major loss to the American Ballet Theatre (ABT), Alexei Ratmansky will not be renewing his contract as ABT’s artist in residence when it expires next June. His departure coincides with the transition of … » Read