Verdi’s sixth opera Alzira has been an object of neglect almost from its 1845 premiere at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, a potential candidate to duplicate the wild popularity won by Ernani at La Scala the year prior. It flopped, and Verdi … » Read

Judith Blegen, a lyric soprano who over 21 years sang more than 200 performances at The Metropolitan Opera, died on Oct. 23 at age 85. She debuted as Papagena in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte , and would go on to sing 20 different roles. … » Read

Days after announcing the successful conclusion to a comprehensive campaign that raised $344 million , the Philadelphia Orchestra and Ensemble Arts (POEA) is the recipient of a $10.5 million gift from David and Rhonda R. Cohen that serves as a … » Read

The Academy of St Martin in the Fields (ASMF) has purchased the London Festival Orchestra (LFO) and in doing so has acquired The Warehouse, the ASMF’s first permanent home. Established in the 1990s by Ross Pople, cellist, founder, and music … » Read

You can understand Lincoln in the Bardo ’s appeal as a subject for an opera. George Saunders’s 2017 novel takes the form of an oral history, the primary narrators being a crowd of ghosts. They haunt the cemetery outside the mausoleum … » Read

LONDON—Alongside the national and country house opera companies, the U.K. has a thriving amateur or semi-professional circuit, ranging from local Gilbert and Sullivan societies to more ambitious outfits with a healthy interest in eclectic … » Read

When Abraham Lincoln’s 11-year old son Willie died in 1862, his parents initially interred him in the Oak Hill Cemetery. The Georgetown graveyard is the setting for Lincoln in the Bardo , George Saunders’s 2017 novel and the opera of … » Read

The 75 th anniversary of the television broadcast of Gian Carlo Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors and the 20 th anniversary of the launch of “The Met: Live in HD” have prompted The Guardian’s Tom Service to muse on … » Read

CHICAGO—A lot has happened to Giancarlo Guerrero since he last conducted the Chicago Symphony, in spring 2024. Later that year, the Nicaragua-born, Costa Rica-raised conductor was appointed music director of the Grant Park Music Festival, … » Read

LONDON—Japanese composer Dai Fujikura found double fortune this Fall when he was commissioned by Nomura Holdings to compose a short work for Sir Antonio Pappano and the London Symphony Orchestra. Not only would his composition receive its … » Read