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?"

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.

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.

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.

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.

On WQX-Aria, Fred Plotkin considers the operatic potential of Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, including whether the character of the bear should have a singing part.