After a decade-long construction process and a cost of $271 million, the Helsinki Music Center opened Wednesday evening. WQXR's Graham Parker writes that, while not perfect, it "raises the bar on design, purpose and relevance."

The connective thread to the great Italian singers of the past is frayed, writes Fred Plotkin. "I wish Italians would come to feel not only proud of their cultural heritage but actively protective of it and expert in it," he writes.

How was it that Gershwin and Schoenberg came to enjoy a fiercely-fought tennis match each week? Why was Prokofiev so interested in the game? As the U.S. Open heats up, host Midge Woolsey considers the links.

Think the family in Our Idiot Brother is slightly screwball? They have nothing on some of opera's divinest dysfunctional dynasties. Read Olivia Giovetti's top 10 picks and discuss!

One of the problems in the Italian opera world today is the fact that singers have been marginalized and cannot necessarily forge careers in the way Italian conductors do. Yet blogger Fred Plotkin looks at a few standouts.

Salvatore Licitra, one of the leading tenors on the international opera scene, is hospitalized in critical condition in hospital near Modica, Sicily from injuries sustained in a traffic accident on a Vespa on Sunday.

Reviewing the Mostly Mozart Festival's closing performance, Olivia Giovetti writes, "There was a small sense of finality; should the city be wiped off the face of the earth this weekend, the last live music some New Yorkers will have heard would be Schubert, Stravinsky and Mozart."

WQX-Aria blogger Olivia Giovetti highlights ten new opera on DVD releases, perfect for a night in and a bowl of popcorn.

Who are the great Italian opera singers of contemporary times? In the first of a three part series, Fred Plotkin takes us on a virtual tour  of the great Italian singers of recent past and present, introducing us to many you should know.

Puccini's La Rondine will be featured this Tuesday at the Metropolitan Opera's Summer HD Festival. This got us thinking. Puccini wrote some of the standard-est of standard canon arias. But what are his lesser-known, underrated arias? Olivia Giovetti names her Top 10.

Many consider tenor Jussi Björling to be one of the greats of the "old Met". Find out why Fred Plotkin considers him to be one of his great childhood influences in this Listening Room profile.

WQX-Aria blogger Olivia Giovetti continues her exploration of opera in pop culture with a top 10 roundup of operatic references in non-operatic music. Read on for her picks and be sure to submit your own.

Why do we have so many fine Italian conductors today? Considering names like Chailly, Luisi, Armiliato and Noseda, blogger Fred Plotkin notes, "I believe that Italy continues to produce outstanding musicians in families that are keepers of the musical flame."

WQX-Aria blogger Olivia Giovetti asks what it means when people say one singer "owns" a role or an aria, and leaves you the reader to answer the question, "Who sang it best?"

A day after Argentine-Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim led his West-Eastern Divan Orchestra in a concert at the borders of North and South Korea, he is now hoping to bring the ensemble to Cairo's Tahrir Square.

Italian conductors have been very important in the pit at the Metropolitan Opera, writes blogger Fred Plotkin. "In the coming season, of the 22 conductors on the roster, there are six Italians and two more with Italian roots."

Should operas ever be retooled by artists who were not the original composers? Read blogger Olivia Giovetti's take on the misplaced controversy surrounding the "new" Porgy and Bess and leave your own thoughts on the line between interpretation and revision.

In what appears to be a pioneering venture for both parties, the New York Philharmonic has signed an agreement with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra to collaborate on a new orchestral training institute in Shanghai.

A holiday can present a composer with the opportunity to write festive music for chorus, orchestra, dancers and solo singers. Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana and Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci are two of the more colorful examples, writes blogger Fred Plotkin.

Shoppers and employees say an Ohio convenience store has fewer people hanging around and hassling customers since the business started blaring classical music.