La Scala closed its doors in February , as the coronavirus ripped through Lombardy—Italy's worst hit region, with over 13,000 of the nearly 28,000 national deaths recorded to date. Grim economic forecasts soon came out of La Scala, with … » Read

Unable to carry out their mission before a live (and paying) public, performing arts companies are projecting potentially debilitating losses. The San Francisco Symphony is estimating a minimum of $13 million, Metropolitan Opera at $60 million, … » Read

Despite political pressure to reopen the economy and manufactured protests against sheltering in place, most leaders of arts organizations are understandably wary of promising the resumption of performances. For starters, no one has yet come up … » Read

As predicted, the San Francisco Symphony has cancelled not only all remaining concerts in the 2019-20 season, but those in the summer season, through August 31, as well. Lost in the bargain, apart from 64 performances, a three-week tour of … » Read

One by one, summer festivals that were hoping to keep to their original time frames are letting go. Today, the Lucerne Festival, not scheduled to start until August 14 (and run through September 13), cancelled. This marks only the second … » Read

We will be updating this on Wednesdays. Please note that British Summer Time (BST) is currently five hours ahead of U.S. Eastern Time (ET) and Central European Time (CET) is currently six hours ahead. Central Daylight Time (CDT) is currently one … » Read

The Salzburg Festival has said it will announce its contingency plans, if any, for Summer 2020 on May 30. In a recent interview with Der Standar d, Artistic Director Markus Hinterhäuser, noting that the July 18-August 30 season was announced … » Read

The Berlin Philharmonic will perform to an empty Philharmonie on May 1, with Music Director Kiril Petrenko conducting a chamber-sized ensemble—safely distanced from of each other—in Arvo Pärt’s Fratres, music by Ligeti, … » Read

The sudden world-wide onset of COVID-19 brought the performing arts to a screeching halt. An article in Vanity Fair  likens the pandemic’s impact to “a giant hook in a nightmare vaudeville performance, yanking artists offstage … » Read

Lynn Harrell, onetime principal cello of the Cleveland Orchestra under George Szell who went on to a highly successful solo career, has died at age 76. No cause of death has been disclosed. A native of New York, he was a student of Leonard Rose … » Read