The late French composer Pierre Henry was among the pivotal forces behind the development of musique concrète, becoming the first formally educated musician to devote his energies to the electronic medium. His final work Dracula was originally…

Monteverdi’s iconic opera articulates Orpheus’ attempts to soothe the keepers of Hades with his voice and his lyre. He is allowed to release his beloved Eurydice from the realm of the dead, on the one condition that he does not turn around to look at…

A founding text of German operatic Romanticism and an absolute masterpiece of musical theatre, Der Freischütz by Carl Maria von Weber has not been performed at La Scala since 1998, when it was conducted by Donald Runnicles, but it is worthwhile…

Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707) is considered today one of the founding fathers of the 17th century German school, whose influence on composers such as Johann Sebastian Bach, his spiritual son, cannot be overestimated. Not only was he an indisputable…

For the Easter Festival 2017 in Baden-Baden, Sir Simon Rattle and the Berliner Philharmoniker draw their inspiration from Tosca, the most well-known and also most brilliant of all the Puccini operas. And that is deservedly so, since Tosca is not…

The Verbier Festival Orchestra, under the baton of one of the greatest Mahlerians of our time, Michael Tilson Thomas, perform the Austrian composer’s Symphony No. 3 in D Minor, an ode to nature. This concert, the climax of the 2016 Verbier Festival…

The Italian composer Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924) died before he could complete his final opera Turandot. Fortunately, his lesser-known colleague Franco Alfano managed to use the maestro's notes to complete the opera in time for its April 26, 1926…

Friar Alessandro is a modest monk living in the hilltop monastery of Assisi and an award winning recording artist. He is a charming and spiritual young man with a gentle tenor voice whose musical message of hope, peace and brotherly love is…

The „Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno" plot couldn’t be simpler: Time and Disillusion try to convince Beauty to abandon Pleasure for less fleeting gratifications. Krzysztof Warlikowski has taken Handel’s first oratorio, written when he was just…

Arrigo Boito's only finished and preserved opera, Mefistofele, recorded in Baden-Baden was praised by critics and loved by the audience - a very rare concurrence. And this could hardly have come as a surprise, since it was no other than Erwin Schrott…