The San Antonio Philharmonic is entangled in a number of lawsuits that make its continued cancellation of concerts look benign. Not only does it owe refunds to ticket holders, it owes $750,000 to the Scottish Rite, having failed to make the … » Read

Bruce Crawford, whose leadership in many guises steered The Metropolitan Opera through the last quarter of the 20 th century, died on December 30. He was 97. Crawford entered the advertising business in 1956, and over the next 30 years rose to … » Read

The shock and awe approach to governance that has characterized the first year of the second DT administration has left many critics anxiously looking for public officials willing to push back. Those distressed by the gutting and recent … » Read

In December, László Krasznahorkai became only the second Hungarian writer to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature; Imre Kertész was the first, in 2002. Although the 71-year-old author is critical of the right-wing Hungarian … » Read

Bellini’s I puritani is a musical feast, as the cast of the Met’s new staging, seen at its New Year’s Eve premiere, amply demonstrated. But it is by no means an exemplary piece of musical drama, which this production, by … » Read

In October, l'Opéra Orchestre Normandie Rouen posted on YouTube its recent staging of  La traviata (Sept.30-Oct. 7) . The word-of-mouth that followed reached my inbox, so I investigated: The immediacy of Chelsea Lehnea’s … » Read

One way to guarantee an electoral victory is to change the voting rules. That appears to have been the strategy deployed to add DT’s name to a “rebranded” Kennedy Center by a “unanimous” vote of the Center’s … » Read

Although Philadelphia’s Academy of Music is the nation’s oldest continually operating opera house, New Orleans can rightfully claim the mantle of being the first. The long-since-destroyed Théâtre d’Orléans … » Read

Stephen Schwartz, best known as the composer of Wicked , along with Pippin, Godspell, and portions of Bernstein’s Mass , which opened the Kennedy Center in 1971, has cancelled his appearance at the Washington National Opera gala in May. The … » Read

Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s path to the Vienna Philharmonic’s New Year’s Day concert started when he replaced a banned Russian conductor at New York’s Carnegie Hall in 2022 with the help of a pianist who traveled … » Read