At a time when opera houses are casting what might be called the ‘big lyric’ Mozart roles—Countess Almaviva, Donna Anna and Donna Elvira, Fiordiligi—with ever younger sopranos... Read more
No, says Oleg Caetani, he does not feel he suffered an injustice in the fact or manner of his removal as music director-designate of English National Opera in December 2005, barely ten months after the appointment had been made... Read more
Rita Gorr, who died in the Spanish Costa Brava town of Denia (where for several years she had made her home) on January 22, less than a month before her 86th birthday... Read more
Born in Travnik in today’s Bosnia-Hercegovina on 24 October 1921 to a Yugoslavian father and Viennese mother, Sena (Srebrenka) Jurinac studied in Zagreb and was a pupil of Mila Kostrencic... Read more
One night in the mid 1990s, the regulars at Manhattan’s Caffé Taci—a restaurant featuring classical singing—were joined by a handsome young baritone who delivered a sterling account of Aleko’s aria... Read more
One of Britain’s best-loved tenors—also a conductor, teacher, author and raconteur—Robert Tear died on March 29 after a brief illness, aged 72. Read more
One of the best-loved and most important British conductors, Sir Edward Downes decided to die alongside his terminally ill wife Joan at the Dignitas clinic in Zurich on July 10. Read more