In a wide-ranging 89th birthday interview the great mezzo speaks frankly about career and colleagues.

Opera Australia admits to early discussions to bring the Albanian soprano back to Australia for Donizetti’s trilogy. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Saint-Saëns’ charming comic opera receives a delightful Australian premiere.

The tenor cites a desire to stay close to his family in refusing any future new productions requiring extensive rehearsal.

The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra's chief will also head Austria's Stadttheater Klagenfurt and Kärntner Sinfonieorchester.

The forgotten Italian opera has been carefully restored by Cambridge academic Dr David Trippett over two years.

Conductor, musicologist, and a leading Rossini expert, who ran the Pesaro Opera Festival, has passed away at 89.

A tradie has been breaking into operatic song on a worksite in Sydney.

Musically mind-blowing – a highly talented, intelligent collaborative period music ensemble.

The sepulchral German bass, a go-to for Kleiber and Karajan, has passed away aged 78. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Kosky’s baroque extravaganza could power SA’s electricity grid for a month.

Latvian mezzo-soprano Elīna Garanča’s voice has only been growing in power and weight since she first came onto the scene in 2001, unaccountably missing out on the top prize at the Cardiff Singer of the World competition. Now, several albums later and with many role successes at the Met and Royal Opera under her belt, she returns with a new recording and a new sound. Well, perhaps not entirely new. Garancˇa has been heading towards this heavier repertoire for a while, trading her signature bel canto for Verdi, verismo and the swoonier French 19th-century repertoire. Scenes from Samson et Dalila and Werther are inevitable, but arias for Eboli, Santuzza and Didon (let alone Marina’s Skuchno Marine… from Boris Godunov) feel more exploratory, more like first steps in a new journey. No Amneris or Azucena yet, but Garanča’s programme note makes clear that it’s only a matter of time. The theme underpinning this wide-ranging collection of scenes and arias is an interesting one: strong women at moments of crisis. It’s not a concept that reduces very tidily to a tagline, but musically it amounts to an album of beautifully managed contradictions. Garanča finds the girlish frailty in Santuzza… Continue reading Get…