Gilbert and Sullivan’s next opera made its surprising debut in New York, rather than London, in an attempt to secure American copyright, which at that time was rather a pirate industry of itself. The Pirates of Penzance opened on New

During the first half of the 19th century, Gioachino Rossini was recognized as the greatest Italian composer of his time. No other composer enjoyed his prestige, popular acclaim and artistic influence in the world of opera. And as we all

Shanghai – the beautiful city on the Yangtze River – was one of the first major cities of China opened to the West in 1842 and seems to have always had one foot firmly in China while, at the same

It’s of some tribute to librettist W.S. Gilbert (1836-1911) and composer Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900) that 140 years after their first comic operas hit the stage, we can still find a great deal of humour in their works and many of

When Ludwig, or Louis Spohr (1784-1859) died at the age of 75, Johannes Brahms lamented that the last of the great masters had died. This seems high praise indeed for a composer whose posthumous neglect is shockingly at odds with

George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) is consistently acknowledged as one of the greatest composers of his age. He contributed to virtually every vocal and instrumental genre in his time, and decisively invented and shaped the evolution of the English oratorio. Handel

In his opera King Arthur, the third act starts with a dramatic scene – Emmeline meets Oswald, who is ardently wooing her, but she’s frozen IN terror. Oswald, showing off, whips out his magic wand changes the entirety of England

We associate John Cage with a number of different sound events – the percussion group that he took on tour around the West Coast in the late 1930s, random radio sounds from his work for 12 radios (Imaginary Landscape No.