Riccardo Muti concluded his five-year tenure as the artistic director of the Pfingstfestspiele (Whitsun) Festival in Salzburg on June 13 by playing one of his strong suits: the music of Luigi Cherubini (1760-1842). Muti has been a leading interpreter and champion of the Florence-born composer who is most famous for his opera, Medea. 

In honor of Bloomsday, WQX-Aria blogger Olivia Giovetti examines three key operatic moments in Ulysses.

On WQX-Aria, blogger Fred Plotkin claims a special feeling for the mezzo-soprano voices. "There is a warmth and sensuality to middle range voices (including the baritone) that exerts a special appeal." Alaska-born mezzo Vivica Genaux is in a case in point.

With the disappearance of Lincoln Center's Barnes & Noble, the Metropolitan Opera Shop is quickly becoming the only game in town for classical and opera CDs. One problem, as WQX-Aria blogger Olivia Giovetti notes: They have dramatically cut back on selling CDs. 

From Salzburg, Fred Plotkin reports on a revival of I Due Figaro, a forgotten operatic tale of Figaro, the character famously popularized by Mozart and Rossini. This one, however, comes via "a production without imagination."

Reporting from Connecticut, WQX-Aria blogger Olivia Giovetti reviews the Cocteau-inspired Greenwich Music Festival. It included a remarkable performance by the blind mezzo-soprano Laurie Rubin.

As megawatt soprano Deborah Voigt prepares to sing Schoenberg with the Philharmonic and Irving Berlin with Glimmerglass, WQX-Aria blogger Olivia Giovetti wonders if the diva may be exploring a new chapter of her career.

In the wake of recent news about Johanna Fiedler's untimely death, WQX-Aria blogger Olivia Giovetti looks at some of the author and former Met press rep's operatic zingers in Molto Agitato.

To be a great maestro, less is more, writes Fred Plotkin on WQX-Aria. "The best conductors sort out almost all of the stylistic and musical issues in rehearsal, leaving themselves and musicians free to just play and breathe spontaneously."

Experiencing the Met's radio broadcasts is no longer an ephemeral experience, writes blogger Fred Plotkin on WQX-Aria. The Met, along with Sony, has begun to take some jewels out of the vault, including recordings of Mozart, Beethoven and Wagner operas.

WQX-Aria blogger Olivia Giovetti takes a look at Opera Feroce's upcoming production of Amor & Psyche, operatic pasticcio and entrepreneurial singers.

At the moment, there are few top Italian female singers known to international audiences, writes Fred Plotkin on WQX-Aria. But two getting fresh attention and are well worth hearing: Anna Caterina Antonacci and Daniela Barcellona.

As the news of death of the great bass Giorgio Tozzi (January 8, 1923-May 30, 2011) has begun to spread, a few people have asked, “Where in Italy was he from?” The answer was Chicago, writes Fred Plotkin on WQX-Aria.

With the Guggenheim's "Great Upheaval" drawing to a close, WQX-Aria blogger Olivia Giovetti examines opera during World War I in the second half of this two-part series.

As the Guggenheim Museum's illuminating exhibition, "The Great Upheaval," comes to a close, WQX-Aria blogger Olivia Giovetti considers the parallels between opera and art circa World War I in a two-part series.

Want to go out of town or keep it local? Do you crave fully-staged Strauss or Mozart with a single piano and seven singers? Olivia Giovetti breaks it all down in this guide to New York-area summer opera performances.

There are the famous, evergreen festivals including Bayreuth, Edinburgh, Glyndebourne, Salzburg, and Verona. All are great and deserve to be attended at least once. But there is so much more, in big cities and small towns.

"There are still great voices today, but they might reside in bodies that look more like those of the average person rather than an operatic Angelina Jolie or Brad Pitt," writes blogger Fred Plotkin. "I have seen many pretty or handsome singers who bore me silly."

With her inaugural season at the helm of the Glimmerglass Festival less than six weeks away, director Francesca Zambello has been appointed artistic adviser to the Washington National Opera.