Blow a kiss, take a bough Blow a kiss, take a bough

Richard Strauss’s many one-act operas make excellent concert programs, both for their length (usually under two hours) and the primary place each gives the orchestration, a specialty where Strauss’s brilliance seldom deserted him.

Notes on camp Notes on camp

Zofia Posmysz spent two years as a prisoner in Auschwitz—and she’s still alive and standing pretty tall, in New York for the Lincoln Center Festival God bless her.

Blind item Blind item

If you’re a hard-core opera buff who finds the Met’s flashy sets and costumes distracting, have I got a show for you!

Monkey business Monkey business

East is West and West is East—the border ever less easy to fix.

Joy cometh in the mourning Joy cometh in the mourning

Is the threnody, the lament over a beloved corpse, the oldest form of song? Surely it is among the oldest; one of the most widespread and stylistically various, millennia before opera was devised.

Mind over matter Mind over matter

“Scientist, lover, gambler, unwed mother — the 1700s French intellectual Émilie du Châtelet was all these and more.”