MILAN—On Nov. 26, Naples’s famed the Teatro di San Carlo was due to open its season with a highly anticipated new production of Don Carlo , staged by Claus Guth before an illustrious audience including Italy’s foreign and … » Read

Rafael Payare, a conductor on the rise, made his debut with the New York Philharmonic last week and brought with him a work never before played by the orchestra. This in itself would not be particularly unusual, except that the work was a … » Read

LONDON—John Wilson and his resurrected Sinfonia of London have been gathering numerous plaudits over the four brief years of their existence, albeit mostly for work on disc. This December 2 live outing at London’s Barbican Center was … » Read

A second outing on disc for a contemporary opera is cause enough for celebration, but a new recording of Anthony Davis’s game changing X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X is surely a red-letter day. Premiered in 1985, X tells the life story … » Read

LONDON--Ralph Vaughan Williams and Michael Tippett might seem odd bedfellows, yet both men were committed socialists who devoted much time to community music-making. Not only that, despite Vaughan Williams’s committed service during World … » Read

When Renée Fleming bid a fond farewell to the Met Opera in 2017, singing her final Marschallin in Rosenkavalier , she did say that she might return one day should the right project come along. That it has, in the form of The Hours , Kevin … » Read

Tragedy has a way of honing artistic focus. After the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center, the founding composers of Bang on a Can—Michael Gordon, David Lang, and Julia Wolfe— veered noticeably inward, their music becoming a bit … » Read

PARIS & VERSAILLES, FRANCE—This month the French capital has showcased early opera, with new productions of stage works by both Gluck (1714-87), the Austrian composer who spearheaded the post-Baroque transition towards classicism, and … » Read

If Sondra Radvanovsky’s ambitious Carnegie Hall recital on November 15 couldn’t compete with the fictional Mawrdew Czgowchwz’s (pronounced Mardu Gorgeous), it wasn’t for lack of trying. The heroine of James McCourt’s … » Read

LONDON--In a week when the very future of opera in the U.K.—and especially opera in English—seemed threatened by Arts Council England’s decision to defund English National Opera, it was heartening to see what could be achieved … » Read