When Richard Wagner died on 23 February 1883, his first complete opera Die Feen (The Fairies) had still not been performed in public. That premier had to wait until 29 June 1888, yet regardless, the work never established itself in

Leoš Janáček (1854-1928) was a married man of 63 and Kamila Stösslová a married woman of 25 when they met in a Moravian spa in the summer of 1917. What might have turned into an innocent and transient infatuation became

Richard Strauss’ Die Schweigsame Frau (The Silent Woman) might be the only opera in the entire oeuvre with a central character who dislikes music. Sir Morosus, a retired British naval officer is allergic to noise of any kind. He disinherits

In the spring of 1778, the 22-year old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart returned to the city of Paris. This time he was chaperoned by his mother—who would tragically fall ill and die—with father Leopold staying put in Salzburg to appease their

Nothing came easy for Anton Bruckner, and habitually plagued by debilitating periods of low self-esteem, he was an easy target for music critics, journalists and composers alike. A particularly vicious critic accused him of “composing like a drunkard.” Given such

The appeal of Serge Diaghilev’s productions for the Ballets Russes is based on the novelty of Russian dance, and on its penchant for exotic subjects, many of them folkloric in nature. Igor Stravinsky scored a Parisian triumph for Diaghilev‘s troupe

With Robert Schumann teetering on the verge of yet another breakdown, his wife Clara sincerely welcomed her husband’s cello concerto. She confided in her diary, “I have played Robert’s violoncello concerto through again, thus giving myself a truly musical and

The Seven Deadly Sins was the final collaboration between two of the most revolutionary artists of Weimar Germany, Kurt Weill and Bertold Brecht. Premiered on 7 June 1933 in the Théatre des Champs-Elysées, Weill watched the declining German political and