Candide, Barbican Centre

‘Glitter and be gay!’ cries Cunegonde, determined to overcome the bitter circumstances in which she finds herself in sordid, downturn Paris.

Gˆtterd‰mmerung, San Francisco

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/06/07/DDS21JQ89F.DTL&type=performance

Phaedra in Philadelphia

The U.S. premiere of Hans Werner Henze’s Phaedra at the Opera Company of Philadelphia may well be the most important and ambitious new work presented by any American company this season.

The Metropolitan Opera HD Live on DVD

Since 2006, movie cineplexes across the USA have attracted a somewhat unlikely crowd for Saturday matinees, from fall to spring.

Jordi Savall, le maÓtre de musique (video)

http://www.lefigaro.fr/musique/2011/06/03/03006-20110603ARTFIG00404-jordi-savall-le-maitre-de-musique.php

Brahms Liebesliederwalzer, Wigmore Hall, London

Any performance of Brahms and Schumann four part songs is an occasion.

Bach Cantatas, volume 11

Pilgrimages, I suspect, derive a degree of their fruitfulness from the slowness of the journey, a pace born of desire or necessity, that removes the journey from the quotidian, brings the purpose into greater focus, and allows for a richer savoring of the experience.

Le Royaume OubliÈ: La TragÈdie Cathare

Before a single track has been heard, Jordi Savall’s The Forgotten Kingdom impresses with its scale: a three-CD set packaged in a lavish, bound book that contains fifty dense pages of English commentary by nine different authors; adding the multiple translations, beautiful illustrations, and song texts, the book itself luxuriantly sprawls over 500 pages.

Handel – True or False?

“Germanico del sig. Hendl”. Since 1929 the printed catalogue of
the Conservatorio Cherubini in Florence (section “Opere teatrali”,
p. 143) has contained a Handel title not mentioned in any other sources.

Ian Bostridge, Wigmore Hall

“Music, music for a while/ Shall all your cares beguile,” vowed Ian Bostridge at the opening of this recital with his regular accompanist, Julius Drake.