Every arts lover has a favorite holiday performance or two, traditions which over the years become part and parcel of the season. And while I wouldn’t want to discoursge anyone from attending one of Kansas City’s more durable large-scale presentations of music, theater, or dance, as the holiday season becomes ever-more crowded with (often quite […]

Nadine Sierra shot to the top of the opera world with a glittering burst of speed. At age 20, the Florida-born soprano became the youngest-ever Grand Finalist at America’s most prestigious vocal competition, the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. She went on to score big at major houses (San Francisco, Paris, La Scala, Berlin’s Staatsoper). […]

“The last rail is laid. The last spike is driven. The Pacific Railroad is completed.” Thus began the report that was telegraphed to the Associated Press on May 10th, 1869, announcing the completion of one of the great engineering feats of the 20th century: The North American Continental Divide had been spanned by rail, and […]

New Dance Partners is built on such an ingenious concept that it’s surprising it hasn’t gained footing in more cities than it has. The idea is simple: Each professional company in town is paired with an eminent choreographer toward creating a new work, and an “umbrella” organization presents the works on a joint program each […]

One of the many things that we owe Mozart is his determination to wrest opera from the clutches of European nobility. Beginning with his 1782 Abduction from the Seraglio, a “singspiel” written in the language of the Viennese public, he helped establish opera as an art-form “for the people.” Opera has been striving to maintain […]

Few moments in theater have stimulated discourse on the role of women in society as compellingly as Nora’s abrupt departure at the end of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. “The door-slam heard ’round the world,” as it’s been called, was one of the boldest acts in all of literature, yet it remains almost as controversial today […]

Even at age four, Ho Anthony Ahn was absolutely certain he was not going to be a violinist. His father, a prominent violinist and teacher, had assumed his firstborn would play “first fiddle” in what he pictured as a family string quartet. Ho wanted no part of it. “It just hurt so badly, that metal […]

The best summer festivals highlight the unexpected: The juxtaposition of idyllic landscapes with the sort of high-end performances that we usually experience in urban settings sometimes permits us to view great art in fresh ways. Three hours north of Kansas City, nestled in verdant Iowa hills, stands one of America’s most delightful and distinguished opera […]

At the end of Wagner’s opera Lohengrin, the source of the most famous bridal march of all, poor Elsa collapses and dies as her heroic groom (who is a Knight of the Holy Grail, after all) sails off to a higher destiny. Misogynistic much? Perhaps it’s a relief that this tune, “Here Comes the Bride,” […]