Watch Wagner’s Ring Cycle: A Complete 15-Hour Performance Is Now Free Online...
The word “Wagnerian” as a synonym for operatic bombast may have fallen out of favor in recent years, as has the reputation of German composer Richard Wagner. He has been regarded as “the most...
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Brooklyn Academy of Music Puts Online 70,000 Objects Documenting the History...
Yesterday the sad news broke that The Village Voice will discontinue its print edition. Co-founded by Norman Mailer in 1955 and providing New Yorkers with savvy music writing, raunchy advice columns,...
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Hear the Highest Note Sung in the 137-Year History of the Metropolitan Opera
You may have heard an A above high C the last time you accidentally stepped on your cat's tail, but it takes a combination of rigorous training, genetic luck, and sheer grit for a human to produce...
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Free: Download 10,000+ Master Drawings from The Morgan Library & Museum’s...
It’s hard for the casual browser to know where to begin with a collection as vast as the master drawings belonging to the Morgan Library & Museum. The Library’s Drawings Online program gives the...
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Hear Singers from the Metropolitan Opera Record Their Voices on Traditional...
Vinyl is back in a big way. Music lovers who booted their record collections during the compact disc’s approximately 15 year reign are scrambling to replace their old favorites, even in the age of...
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Leonard Bernstein Awkwardly Turns the Screws on Tenor Jose Carreras While...
What have we here? Evidence that the Maestro is a monster? Or a behind the scenes reminder that Arrested Development’s wannabe actor Tobias Fünke is not too far off base when he says that to make it...
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Is Opera Part of Pop Culture? Pretty Much Pop #15 with Sean Spyres
http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/partiallyexaminedlife/PMP_015_9-27-19.mp3 Opera used to be a central part of European pop culture, Pavarotti was as big a pop star as they...
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How a Philip Glass Opera Gets Made: An Inside Look
Most fever dreams require very little pre-planning and coordination. All it takes is the flu and a pillow, and perhaps a shot of Ny-Quil. A fever dream on the order of composer Philip Glass’ 1984...
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Italians’ Nightly Singalongs Prove That Music Soothes the Savage Beast of...
It’s not like we’re maestros…it’s a moment of joy in this moment of anxiety. —Emma Santachiara, Rome As reported by The New York Times, Ms. Sanachiara, age 73, has joined the vast choir of ordinary...
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6 Minute Reprieve From the World’s Troubles, Courtesy of Tilda Swinton,...
This video of Tilda Swinton’s Springer Spaniels cavorting in pastoral Scotland to a Handel aria performed by countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo won’t cure what ails you, but it is definitely good...
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Barcelona Opera Re-Opens with a Performance for 2,300 Potted Plants: Watch It...
Writes The Guardian: "Barcelona's El Liceu opera house reopened on Monday with a concert to an audience of 2,292 potted plants. The event took place a day after Spain's state of emergency came to an...
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When Shostakovich Adapted Gogol’s “The Nose” Into an Opera: Watch Giant Noses...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YotMwwixPsw The first-time reader of a story called “The Nose” may expect any number of things: a character with a keen sense of smell; a murder evidenced by the...
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The Blob Opera Lets You Create Festive Music with Ease: An Interactive...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAgdT-YO_nc Tis the season when we’re never more than one singalong Messiah away from wishing we had a better voice. David Li’s interactive Blob Opera allows us to...
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An Opera Singer & Cabaret Artist Record an Astonishing Version of David Bowie...
On the surface of things, Anthony Roth Costanzo, the internationally-recognized countertenor and Justin Vivian Bond, the subversive performance artist best known for their creation Kiki DuRane, “an...
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When Leonard Bernstein Turned Voltaire’s Candide into an Opera (with Help...
The seventeen-fifties found Western civilization in the middle of its Age of Enlightenment. That long era introduced on a large scale the notion that, through the use of rationality and scientific...
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