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Performing arts

Review: Meyerbeer's rare 'Robert' staged in London
Degas painted it. Chopin wrote variations on it. Balzac and Dumas mentioned it in their fiction. The Paris Opera performed it 100 times in just three ...
Swiss opera diva Della Casa dies at 93
Famed for her beauty that matched her serene voice, Swiss-born diva Lisa Della Casa swept up crowds at opera houses of the past century with an ...
Review: Kaufmann triumphs as La Scala's Lohengrin
This Lohengrin is no knight in shining armor, confidently riding in on a swan to defend a beautiful maiden. No, the barefoot hero on view at La Scala ...
Spice Girls musical 'Viva Forever' opens in London
"Viva Forever"? Time will tell. Girl Power lit up London's West End on Tuesday at the premiere of the new Spice Girls musical — but audiences and ...
Russian opera diva Vishnevskaya dies at 86
World-renowned Russian opera diva Galina Vishnevskaya, who with her husband defied the Soviet regime to give shelter to writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn ...
Review: Terfel shines in Zurich's odd 'Dutchman'
There's scarcely a ship or a sailor to be seen in the wildly revisionist, weirdly anti-colonialist new production of Wagner's "The Flying Dutchman" ...
Olympics ceremony gets nod at London stage awards
Director Danny Boyle's Olympics opening ceremony is a finalist for theater event of the year at London's Whatsonstage awards. Boyle's spectacular ...
Trapped in 2 worlds: 'Pelleas et Melisande'
In Claus Guth's haunting new production of Debussy's "Pelleas et Melisande," the characters move as if in a trance between two worlds — both of them ...
'The Bodyguard' stage musical opens in London
Does "The Bodyguard" have the muscle to be a hit? A stage musical based on the 1992 movie starring Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner has opened at ...
US magician burned in Dominican TV 'stunt'
A magician from the United States said Monday he is getting medical treatment and pursuing legal action after the host of a TV show in the Dominican ...
La Scala: Verdi-Wagner polemics 'ridiculous'
The dual bicentennial of the births of composers Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner is turning into a dueling bicentennial. La Scala general manager ...
Spacey unveils star-studded 2013 Old Vic line-up
Vanessa Redgrave and James Earl Jones are reuniting onstage to play sparring lovers Beatrice and Benedick in Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing," ...
Pope greets clowns, acrobats: Circus comes to town
Pope Benedict XVI greeted thousands of clowns, acrobats, puppeteers and even a pair of lion cubs on Saturday as the circus came to town for an unusual ...
Danish theater cancels Amy Winehouse play
A play about Amy Winehouse that was to premiere in Denmark in January has been canceled after the late British singer's family blocked its use of her ...
Gluck opera shines despite tenor's voice loss
Two tenors in the same role at the same time — what could have been a recipe for disaster turned instead into a delightful operatic performance of ...
Mark Rylance reigns in Shakespeare double bill
In his last stage role, Mark Rylance thrilled audiences as a bawdy bard for modern Britain. Now he's going back to an earlier Bard in a vibrant ...
Cuba migration change eases return for defectors
Sydney Gregory has never met her father, an Olympic silver medalist in fencing who defected from the Cuban team at a tournament in Lisbon in 2002 when ...
AP Interview: Muti says culture good for economy
Riccardo Muti, the master conductor, is sounding an ominous note, and it isn't rising from the orchestra pit. The former longtime maestro at Milan's ...
Holocaust opera to premiere in Austrian parliament
An opera focusing on Nazi atrocities against children will premiere next year at an unusual venue — Austria's parliament. An official involved in the ...
Londonderry unveils city of culture program
The Northern Ireland city of Londonderry has announced a program of arts events ranging from punk to painting to celebrate its role as the U.K.
Vienna platform launches opera live stream
Vienna's opera scene is going live on the web for the first time with the launch of the first Internet-based platform for streaming classical ...
Susan Boyle's fairy tale dream tempered by reality
She dreamed a dream, and it came true. But what happened next for Susan Boyle? The middle-aged church volunteer from a small town in Scotland became ...
'Clybourne Park' writer upset about blackface
The Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of "Clybourne Park" says he withdrew permission for a Berlin theater company to produce the play after learning ...
Hollywood costumes exhibition opens in London
Darth Vader, Charlie Chaplin's Little Tramp, Scarlett O'Hara and Indiana Jones have all come under one London roof. Not the actual characters, of ...
Greek police seek prosecution of rightist lawmaker
Greek police said Friday they were seeking the prosecution of a far-right lawmaker for his behavior during a protest in Athens against a play ...