Artist Articles

Some opera productions arrive quietly. Others detonate. Ulf Schirmer has witnessed both — and after four decades at the podium, he knows

Ask a conductor why audiences still flock to Tannhäuser and La Traviata but rarely to contemporary works, and most will offer a

In the Midst of Chaos, a Voice for Peace The world was reeling. Paris had just been struck. And in that darkness,

Three hundred Russians. Dozens of Chinese extras. One stage that stopped time. When the Mariinsky Theatre brought Prokofiev’s War and Peace to

The halls are already built. The orchestras are assembling. The question that Valery Gergiev carries with him — through six Chinese cities,

It is named after a war. It unfolds on the scale of an empire. And yet, after forty years of living with

Something long anticipated had finally arrived. After years of wanting to perform in the Far East, Stile Antico—one of the world’s most

Seven voices enter one by one. Each carries its own melodic line—distinct, purposeful, alive. Then they begin to weave. What emerges isn’t

It would be easy to mistake Renaissance music for atmosphere. Easy to let it settle into the background—candlelight and stone arches, gentle

A Conductor Between Two Worlds: Sir Antonio Pappano Comes to Hong Kong Some conductors command a stage. Others inhabit it entirely. Sir