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.

Nestled in the middle of this year's Mostly Mozart Festival, a concert production of Handel's Orlando quietly slips in but guarantees a Baroque bang, writes blogger Olivia Giovetti.

Three weeks after it sparked online controversy, Nonesuch Records has changed the cover art for WTC 9/11, a forthcoming album featuring Steve Reich’s eponymous composition about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

They're getting the band back together. Well, the orchestra. Just four months after the Syracuse Symphony filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, plans are now afoot to revive the defunct orchestra.

Smetana’s The Bartered Bride, Wagner's Siegfried and Sir William Walton's The Bear are just a few examples of operas involving grizzly adventures.

For your next road trip, WQX-Aria blogger Olivia Giovetti looks at some of the recent releases of opera recordings, including Handel, Rossini, Donizetti, Wagner and some Sciarrino for good measure.

Anyone who attends opera performances regularly at a local opera company develops a relationship with a whole group of people whom he or she may not know personally: The chorus.

Olivia Giovetti counts down the top 15 greatest opera moments in film, from Maria Callas in Philadelphia and Mascagni in Raging Bull to the sounds of Puccini in Fatal Attraction and Moonstruck.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, British soprano Lucy Crowe will make her Lincoln Center debut at the Mostly Mozart Festival. Previous entries in my series of “Unsung Singers” were artists further along in their careers who I feel deserve more recognition. Perhaps in the case of Ms. Crowe “unsung” should suggest that she has not yet performed in places where I could attend. Most of her career thus far has been in the United Kingdom.

Reviewing for WQX-Aria, blogger Olivia Giovetti wonders how the stark simplicity of conductor Iván Fischer's staging correlates with the addictive excesses of Don Giovanni's psyche.

The struggling New York City Opera has accused the head of its musicians’ union of threatening members who choose to take work with the company without a contract in place.

It was only a matter of time. Ravel’s Bolero, the world's longest and most seductive musical crescendo, has been given the flash-mob treatment.