Who owns seats—full or empty—in concert halls and opera houses? Do they belong to the theater? The ticket-holder? And does that make a difference if you're switching a seat? Blogger Olivia Giovetti considers these questions.

La Scala, despite its famous history of temperamental divas and conductors and its frequent labor strife, also reminds us of the dignity, the glory and the sheer visceral thrill of opera, writes Fred Plotkin.

In a season of Best-Of lists, Operavore Olivia Giovetti names her own picks for standouts of 2011. Find out what made the cut, and leave your own nominations in the comments.

In the latest of our Warm-Up series, Olivia Giovetti talks to Iestyn Davies about how a countertenor prepares his voice for a performance -- and doesn't mind a few jokes along the way.

This week marks the 30th anniversary of the premiere of Franco Zeffirelli’s production of La Bohème. This production, more than any other, changed operagoing at the Met, writes blogger Fred Plotkin.

Anthony Amato, co-founder of the Amato Opera, died on Tuesday. For over six decades, his company was a fixture on the downtown arts scene.

With James Levine's departure from the Met an imminent inevitability, blogger Olivia Giovetti looks at several possibilities for his successor.

As long as words, whether in printed notes or projected titles, are part of opera- and concert-going, we need to think about better, more meaningful ways to integrate them into performances, writes blogger Fred Plotkin.

The music and imagery of Wagner turns up in two Oscar frontrunners: Melancholia and A Dangerous Method. Blogger Olivia Giovetti considers their respective merits.

How does illness or disability affect creative and performing artists? As blogger Fred Plotkin writes, this question has confronted artists from Mahler and Britten to James Levine and Thomas Quasthoff.

Does the opera buff on your shopping list prefer early music or Russian romantics? How about a Wagner set? Here's five acts worth of CDs and DVDs to make spirits bright.

In the past few years, several opera companies have shut their doors, seemingly due to a lack of funding. Blogger Fred Plotkin considers whether it's due to the Great Recession, or part of a larger trend.

This year's operatic Grammy Award nominees are a motley assortment, writes blogger Olivia Giovetti. While she finds much to admire in each recording, she wonders what purpose this award ultimately serves.

The encore has shifted from a spontaneous treat to a "dessert expected to follow dinner," even if the meal was five courses long and washed down with a heavy red wine, writes blogger Olivia Giovetti.

It is not that we don’t have excellent singers now, writes Fred Plotkin. But Shirley Verrett’s generation was steeped in the kind of training to be an overall artist that is sorely missing today.

"In the end, the Met's new Faust is worth selling one’s soul for the musical performance alone," writes Operavore Olivia Giovetti. "But it’s going to be a long season in hell with such a heartless and overly clinical production."

Liszt may be Lang Lang's piano hero, but he's also a lieder leader, especially among some of opera's current hottest commodities. Blogger Olivia Giovetti looks at three song performances.

Why do some opera singers have such a hard time with what should be a key part of their job, namely, mastering foreign languages? Blogger Fred Plotkin has some theories.

With the New York Festival of Song exploring the Semitic hand in secular Yuletide carols, blogger Olivia Giovetti casts some light on the large number of Jewish opera composers.