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Music

  • La Traviata

    Avery Boettcher's Performance Highlights Livermore Valley's Outstanding Production

    By: Victor Cordell - Sep 30th, 2025

    One of the canon's most fabled operas, the story of a frail, doomed courtesan and her star-crossed love for a man from the upper class has resonated with audiences of all ilks for over 170 years. Verdi's sumptuous score with stunning arias and ensembles is matchless.

  • Bates, Szymanowski, Lutoslawski at NY Phil

    David Robertson Conducts

    By: Susan Hall - Sep 29th, 2025

    David Robertson and the New York Philharmonic performed a program that displayed the orchestra in all its glory.

  • Pene Pate at the Park Avenue Armory

    Tenor of the Century Performs

    By: Susan Hall - Sep 28th, 2025

    Tenor Pene Pate gave his first concert in New York at the Park Aveneue Armory. He has a superb voice, impeccable, warm deilvery and a special generosity, charcteeristic of his Samoan heritage.

  • Kavalier and Clay Come to the Met

    Composer Mason Bates Not Well Served

    By: Susan Hall - Sep 26th, 2025

    If you listened carefully to a panel discussion at the Guggenheim Museum a few weeks before the opera by Mason Bates, The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, opened, you could hear the problems staging this work was going to face at the Metropolitan Opera.

  • Victoria Bond at The Village Trip

    Wonderful, Wild Music in New York

    By: Susan Hall - Sep 19th, 2025

    Poets of Patchin Place features the première of settings of Barnes’ poetry by William Kentner Anderson. Also on the program: Victoria Bond: “Leopold Bloom’s Homecoming” from Ulysses by James Joyce. Nehemiah Luckett: “Oceans Always Lead to Some Great Good Place,” inspired by James Baldwin’s Another Country and commissioned by The Village Trip for Baldwin’s centennial,

  • Dead Man Walking

    San Francisco Opera Reprises 21st Century's Most Successful Opera

    By: Victor Cordell - Sep 19th, 2025

    Joseph de Rocher faces execution for the grisly murders of young lovers. Though unrepentant, he requests and receives spiritual counseling from Sister Helen Prejean. The opera based on the true story scintillates on all dimensions.

  • White Raven, Black Dove in Boston

    White Snakes Projects Presents

    By: Susan Hall - Sep 17th, 2025

    Celebrated for creating diverse, timely and relevant opera, White Snake Projects (WSP) returns to Boston’s Strand Theatre, September 26-28, 2025, for the world premiere of White Raven, Black Dove, in a season dedicated to addressing the climate crisis through art. Composed by Jacinth Greywoode and Andrew Lynch, and written by librettist Cerise Lim Jacob, White Raven, Blake Dove is an original work of science fiction fantasy exploring two issues consuming America today – race and climate change.

  • Cosi fan Tutte

    Opera San Jose Charms with a Bright Version of the Mozart / da Ponte Favorite

    By: Victor Cordell - Sep 17th, 2025

    A small-scale grand opera, Cosi revolves around a bet that two sisters will be unfaithful to their fiances within 24 hours. To tempt the women, the men are required to dress like Albanians, with each man pursuing the other's beloved. Cosi is full of beautiful, if unmemorable music, but the comic chops of the singers are what makes the opera most appealing.

  • The Heart at La Jolla

    By Kate Kerrigan, Music and Lyrics by Anne Eisendrath and Ian Eisendrath

    By: Sharon Eubanks - Sep 08th, 2025

    The Heart is written by Kate Kerrigan, with music and lyrics by Anne Eisendrath and Ian Eisendrath. It is based on the novel, Réparer les Vivants by Maylis de Kerangal.  In the LA Jolla Playhouse production, over 24 hours, the heart of a person in the wrong place at the wrong time is connected to another person who was in the right place at the right time to answer the call.

  • A Night with Janis Joplin

    Sonoma Arts Live's Lively Jukebox Musical

    By: Victor Cordell - Sep 06th, 2025

    Janis Joplin was one of rock-and-roll's greatest icons. This musical tribute to her which has thrilled audiences across the country and around the world returns to the San Francisco Bay Area, where she earned her fame.

  • Berio and Boulez at the Berlin Music Festiva;

    Both Composers 100th Birthdays

    By: Susan Hall - Sep 05th, 2025

    The Berlin Music Festival is honoring Luciano Berio on the occasion of his 100th birthday with eight concerts devoted to his work. His explorations of acoustic sound fused with electronics, his relentless push to test the technical and expressive limits of instruments, his inventive musical collage and dialogues between traditions are all being showcased. Pierre Boulez, whose centenary also falls this year, is likewise being celebrated.

  • Berlin Philharmonic Opens Its Season

    Kirill Petrenko Compels

    By: Susan Hall - Aug 31st, 2025

    The Berlin Philharmonic launched its 2025–26 season with a program that set Schumann, Zimmermann, and Brahms in conversation across a century of musical upheaval. Under Kirill Petrenko’s direction, the evening unfolded less like a sequence of works than  a drama in three acts.

  • BSO Opens its Boston Season

    Free Concert in Symphony Hall

    By: Susan Hall - Aug 26th, 2025

    The Boston Symphony opens its fall season with a free concert at Symphony Hall on September 17.

  • Wozzeck

    A Fine Rendering by West Edge Opera of the Atonal Masterpiece

    By: Victor Cordell - Aug 10th, 2025

    Downtrodden Franz Wozzeck suffers abuse from those in higher social classes and is betrayed by his common-law wife who has an affair with a Drum Major. West Edge depicts the drama of the underclass in concert with the dissonance of Alban Berg's music.

  • Barrington"s Mr. Finn Cabaret

    Andrea McArdle and Julie Benko

    By: BSC - Aug 08th, 2025

    Barrington Stage Company announces two dazzling evenings of Broadway talent at Mr. Finn’s Cabaret, headlined by two of the Great White Way’s brightest stars: Andrea McArdle and Julie Benko.

  • The Knights at Clark Art Institute

    Two Free Concerts

    By: Clark - Aug 05th, 2025

    Over Labor Day weekend, The Knights return to the Clark Art Institute to present two free concerts for music lovers of all ages.

  • David and Jonathan

    Baroque Opera with a Modern Twist at West Edge

    By: Victor Cordell - Aug 04th, 2025

    Charpentier's 1688 opera celebrates the close but star-crossed friendship of Biblical hero David with Jonathan, the son of Saul, Israel's first king. Saul's resistance to God's call to step down in favor of David results in a clash between Saul and David as well as Jonathan's conflict between love and duty. Without bending the text, the West Edge twist is that David and Jonathan's relationship is carnal.

  • Dolores

    World Premiere at West Edge Opera Honors Distinguished Labor Leader

    By: Victor Cordell - Aug 03rd, 2025

    Dolores Huerta made her mark as Cesar Chavez's most trusted associate in the California grape pickers strike and boycott starting in 1965 that would result in major protections for agricultural workers. Independently, she led strikes and boycotts elsewhere, and she negotiated the contract that would end the unrest.

  • Le Comte Ory

    Rossini's Comedy Done Right at Merola

    By: Victor Cordell - Aug 02nd, 2025

    The hedonistic and opportunistic Comte Ory takes advantage of men being away at the Crusades to pursue women. Knowing that the Comtesse Adele seeks spiritual guidance, his first gambit is to disguise as a hermit, but his own page gets in the way.

  • Faure's Penelope at Munich Opera

    Karkacheva and Jovanovich Star

    By: Susan Hall - Aug 01st, 2025

    As part of its 150th anniversary celebration, the Munich Opera Festival presented Pénélope by Gabriel Fauré—a bold and welcome choice. To champion this rarely performed work, the company brought in Andrea Breth, one of Germany’s most accomplished theater directors. The cast clearly responded to her direction with commitment and nuance.

  • Mundruczó's Lohengrin in Munich

    Munich Opera Festival Mounts Wagner's Most Frequentlyly Performed Work

    By: Susan Hall - Jul 31st, 2025

    No opera company today rivals the Munich Opera when it comes to innovative yet deeply respectful productions of the classic repertoire. While it’s tempting—and often rewarding—to look beyond the traditional opera circuit for new creative voices, few choices are as effective as Hungarian filmmaker and theater director Kornél Mundruczó.

  • Annie the Musical

    At Sharon Playhouse

    By: Karen Isaacs - Jul 30th, 2025

    Annie has a strong connection to Connecticut. It started life at Goodspeed in 1976, before heading to Broadway, where it not only won multiple Tony Awards but played until 1983. While the inspiration was the comic strip, Little Orphan Annie, the musical’s plot by Thomas Meehan, is completely original. Charles Strouse wrote the music with lyrics by Martin Charnin.

  • Das Rheingold in Munich

    Prelude to a Stunning New Ring Cycle by Tobias Kratzger

    By: Susan Hall - Jul 29th, 2025

    The Munich Opera celebrates summer with an annual festival. This year, the prelude to the Ring Cycle by Richard Wagner, Das Rheingold, provided novel and thrilling music and drama.

  • Die Walküre

    A Tale of Conflicts and Betrayals

    By: Victor Cordell - Jul 28th, 2025

    Brünhilde's empathy for illicit lovers Siegmund and Sieglinde induces her to betray the orders of her father Wotan, the king of gods. His punishment is to reduce her to becoming a mortal. Santa Fe Opera's production excels.

  • Rigoletto

    Verdi's Tragic Masterpiece at Santa Fe Opera

    By: Victor Cordell - Jul 27th, 2025

    The jester Rigoletto vows to protect his daughter from lascivious men. Not only does he fail, but he suffers tragic consequences as a result of his attempted revenge after her abduction and abuse.

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