The Adventures of Pinocchio

The operas of British composer Jonathan Dove enjoy a fairly high level of both critical and popular support in the U.K., where his best known work, Flight, premiered at the prestigious Glyndebourne Festival.

Angela Meade’s Norma at Caramoor

Bellini’s Norma was composed in 1831 and, in the era of such
singing actresses as Giuditta Pasta, Maria Malibran, Giuseppina Strepponi,
Giulia Grisi and ThÈrËse Tietjens (famous Normas all), soon came to be known as
the bel canto vehicle par excellence, the summit of vocal achievement.

Cosima Wagner — The Lady of Bayreuth

Originally published in German as Herrin des H¸gels, das Leben der Cosima Wagner (Siedler, 2007), this new book by Oliver Hilmes is an engaging portrait of one of the most important women in music during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Simon Boccanegra at the Proms

Proms audiences have a tendency to be overly enthusiastic in showing their
appreciation, with an arsenal of rituals and traditions at the ready to show
their praise and adulation for their idols.

Opera’s Brigadoon — OTSL’s 2010 Season of the Sublime

At the beginning of every summer, an oasis of music and theater appears like
magic in the suburbs of St. Louis.

Meistersinger at the Proms

The BBC Proms brought the Welsh National Opera’s hit Die Meistersinger von N¸rnberg to the Royal Albert Hall and to the world, via international broadcast.

Mahler’s 8th at Royal Albert Hall

A performance of Mahler’s Eighth Symphony could only ever be relatively underwhelming; even a car crash of a performance would impress in some sense, indeed most likely in quite a few.

Darkness Visible: Dowland and beyond

This was a recital of concentrated intensity — a remarkable dialogue between texts, timbres and idioms, across ages and among performers.

Stars Sizzle, Productions Fizzle in Paris

So when did you last shout “bravissima”?

Tosca at Orange

There was a time when the likes of Luc Bondy and Francesca Zambello staged operas for the ChorÈgies d’Orange in its famed ThÈ‚tre Antique.