8 Musical Side Dishes

Equally satisfying as the main course, these shorter works can round out your musical diet with different textures, flavors, and colors.

An Interview with Frederica von Stade

The legendary mezzo-soprano shares her love for Mozart, French mélodie, and American art song.

6 Infamous, Disastrous Classical Premieres

Some of today’s most beloved works of classical music weren’t well received when they made their debuts!

Superstitious Minds: Haunting Classical Music Customs

Quirky customs, long-lived legends, and other classical curiosities and superstitions.

Javier Camarena, a Bel Canto Specialist

An interview with the Mexican tenor in advance of his Lyric Opera debut in Verdi’s Rigoletto.

10 Classical Earworms: The Mastery Behind Unforgettable Music

This music will stay with you—drawing you back to these pieces time and again.

Gioachino Rossini’s Guillaume Tell

Roberto Frontali in the title role of the Swiss folk hero, with John Osborn as Arnold and Lisette Oropesa starring as Mathilde.

Paul Paray and the Detroit Symphony, 1

Sampling the greatest recordings (reissued on the Eloquence label) from a fruitful collaboration.

Met Opera Announces ’24–25 Season

Four contemporary operas have their Met premieres.

Muti Conducts Mozart & Prokofiev

Plus the overture to Rossini’s Il viaggio a Reims.

Alessandro Corbelli, the great comic Italian baritone

An interview with the bel canto specialist in advance of his return to Lyric Opera in Rossini’s Cinderella.

Rossini’s Le comte Ory

While all the men in town are called away to war, Ory seizes the opportunity to pursue the now unguarded women of the village. But they’ve all taken a vow of chastity – even the Countess Adèle…

Muti Conducts Mozart & Prokofiev

We celebrate Riccardo Muti’s 13th and culminating season as the CSO’s tenth music director.

Lyric Opera 2023-2024 Season: Dutchman, Aida, Cinderella, Audra

Next year’s lineup of six mainstage operas offers choices for traditional and contemporary opera fans alike.

An Interview with Juan Diego Flórez

The Peruvian tenor previews his upcoming Chicago recital for Symphony Center Presents.

Lawrence Brownlee – Bel Canto Royalty

The leading American bel canto specialist on singing Rossini, Donizetti, and Bellini, and welcoming new audiences with his Lawrence Brownlee & Friends concerts.

Lyric’s ’22-23 Season: Verdi, ‘Fiddler,’ Fleming, & ‘Carmen’

Plus a world premiere, Chicago-set take on ‘The Barber of Seville’ and the return of ‘West Side Story’

American Takes Top Prize at 2020 Glyndebourne Opera Cup, Ryan Opera Center Tenor Takes Third

In March, the ascendant American baritone Edward Nelson took first prize at the 2020 Glyndebourne Opera Cup, an operatic singing competition hosted in England.

The Sights and Soundbites of Lyric Opera’s Glamorous Opening Night

With the red carpet adorning Wacker Drive and the Art Deco opera house buzzing with excitement, Lyric Opera of Chicago celebrated its opening night on Saturday, September 28. Rossini’s Barber of Seville, the bubbly opera buffa, was an appropriate toast to the beginning of Lyric’s 65th season.

Playlist: Classical Music From Composers’ School Days

Just because the school year is right around the corner doesn’t mean that you have to stop playing (or writing) music. As proof, here are 16 pieces from composers written when they were still students!

3 Fresh Musical Events for Your Weekend!

We’re getting ready to share our Summer Music Guide (keep an eye out for it next week), but here are three events happening this weekend, each of which combine or reimagine classical music and dance, that we wanted to be sure to tell you about. The Rosina Project It’s Rossini like you’ve never heard him before. Chicago Fringe Opera teams …

Lyric Opera of Chicago Announces 2019-2020 Season, With Wagner’s ‘Ring’ Cycle, ‘Don Giovanni’, ‘Madama Butterfly’

Lyric’s 2019-2020 season will include seven mainstage operas (three of which are company premieres), three full performances of Lyric’s new Ring cycle, and the Broadway at Lyric premiere of 42nd Street.

10 Composers Who Surprised Us With Their Hidden Talents

Though we tend to remember our favorite composers for their music first and foremost, many of them were virtuosic in more ways than one.

Playlist: 10 Shakespeare-Inspired Operas You Should Know

If “Music oft hath such a charm / To make bad good, and good provoke to harm,” perhaps these 10 Shakespeare-inspired operas will charm you.

Chicago Symphony Orchestra Announces 2017-2018 Season

Riccardo Muti will conduct ten weeks of subscription programs at Symphony Center and lead the orchestra on two U.S. tours, to the West Coast in October and to the East Coast in February 2018.