WHEN the Teatro Colón, Latin America's most famous opera house, closed for refurbishment in November 2006, Buenos Aires city officials vowed that it would reopen in time for its centenary on May 25th ...

On the east face of Monte Colodri in Arco (Sarca Valley, Italy) Alessandro Beber and Matteo Pavana have established the multi-pitch rock climb Opera Buffa (270m, 7c+). Beber reports. The east face of ...

Some of the greatest operas are also the most difficult to shove into a narrow category. Others have layer upon layer, which makes them endlessly fascinating. “The Ghosts of Versailles” — the “grand ...

This excellent and very readable biography of Gioachino Rossini does not pretend to tell us anything new about his music. For that we can go elsewhere. But Gaia Servadio has written a lively, ...

The report by Italian mountaineer Leo Gheza who on 29 April, after having cycled 150km, climbed "Opera Buffa" rope solo on Mount Colodri at Arco. Almost 300m high and with difficulties up to 7c+, ...

It’s a rare treat for opera fans in Hong Kong. The music of this three-act opera La finta giardiniera (the pretend garden girl) by Mozart is universally regarded as an astonishing feat for a teenager ...

On January 15, 1787, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote proudly from Prague to his friend Baron Gottfried von Jacquin: “Here nothing is talked about except Figaro; nothing is played, blown, sung, and ...