Boris Godounov at the Bastille

L’Opéra de Paris redonne à partir d’aujourd’hui, à Bastille, le Boris Godounov créé en octobre 2002 sous la baguette de James Conlon et dans la mise en scène de Francesca Zambello. C’est Jiri Kout qui devait assurer la direction musicale de ces nouvelles représentations. Empêché pour des raisons de santé, il sera remplacé par Alexander Vedernikov, directeur musical et chef principal du Théâtre Bolchoï qui assurera les sept premiers concerts, laissant à Alexander Titov, chef invité du Théâtre Marinski depuis 1991, le soin de prendre le pupitre pour les deux derniers. Une façon de recréer à Paris la rivalité artistique qui oppose Moscou à Saint-Pétersbourg.

Faust at the Met — Another View

In opera, embarrassment comes with the territory. Sooner or later, if you’re a fine and dignified singer, you will find yourself trapped onstage in a situation or a costume so stupid that the voice of God couldn’t save the scene. For René Pape, who has the body and bearing of a Hussar and who is probably the world’s best basso, the moment came in Act IV of the Metropolitan Opera’s new production of “Faust,” the scene in which the illegitimately pregnant Marguerite enters a church to repent and finds a taunting Mephistopheles.

Zemlinsky’s The Dwarf in Budapest

IMAGINE you’ve got a birthday coming up. What would you like this year? How about a dwarf? I didn’t think so. Well, how about a dwarf who doesn’t know how ugly and misshapen he is, and in fact thinks he’s attractive and loveable?

Alexandrina Milcheva Opens the 9th Easter Festival at the Sofia National Opera

On April 23, the 70-year old Bulgarian mezzo, Alexandrina Milcheva, gave a recital of a full value program at the Sofia opera, including airs from: “Orpheus” (Gluck), “Dido and Eneas”(Purcell), “Faust” (Gounod), “Il Trovatore”, “Werther”(Massenet), “Adrienne Lecouvreur”(Cilea)and “Carmen.”

GLUCK: Orphee et Euridice

Christoph Willibald Gluck’s (1714-1787) Orfeo ed Euridice is an opera that began a major reform of Italian opera and the way it was composed and performed in the eighteenth century.

Summer Courses and institutes for singers at New England Conservatory

Here is a list of courses and workshops at NEC this summer that relate to singing and voice training.

Kilar’s Missa pro Pace at Alice Tully Hall

Amid the annual parade of world-class orchestras passing through New York, a visit by the Wroclaw Philharmonic of Poland could easily have been overlooked – and to some extent it was, in a sparsely attended concert at Alice Tully Hall on Sunday afternoon. But on Saturday evening, partly through an accident of timing, the orchestra played to a nearly full house in St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

Daily Telegraph Interviews Richard Farnes of Opera North

Opera North is on sparkling form right now – but how will it cope with its forthcoming period of homelessness? Rupert Christiansen meets its inspirational music director Richard Farnes

Boulevard Solitude at Graz

In the middle of 2006, when you’d rather scream than hear another note of Mozart, take heed of a less-heralded musical birthday: Hans Werner Henze will turn 80.

In the News: Henze and Boulez Wow Paris; Faust at the Met; Chanticleer at the Temple of Dendur

How do composers famous in their younger days for radicalism look to the future of their art and reputation as they reach their 80th birthday? Paris in the past few days has been witness to hints of how a baton change might occur for two eminent seniors of music, Frenchman Pierre Boulez and German Hans Werner Henze.