The Reverberate Hills; or The Apotheosis of the Narwhal

Some of the world premieres I’ve gone to have been tarted up with klieg lights and glam women in gowns they should have known better than to...

I walked past a movie theater today and its marquee was advertising both the regular feature and the Friday night midnight movie, so it read...

Sometimes it was just by chance that I started listening to certain composers. I can’t remember when or why exactly I started listening to P...

I have just returned from hearing Olga Borodina at Zellerbach Hall. Cal Performances Director Robert Cole came out beforehand, but since I w...

Recently I stumbled across a French translation of this blog, which mystified, fascinated, and delighted me. I have no idea who prompted thi...

Actual overheard dialogue during the first intermission of Samson et Delilah at San Francisco Opera last Tuesday: Man with ratty shoulder-le...

I spent two evenings last week at Mozart Dances, because I knew anything by Mark Morris would be worth seeing at least twice. Last year’s wo...

This has been, and I mean this quite literally, a crappy week, and delighted though I am to have a chance to use words like "mephitic...

Just like Tax Day or Christmas, which always show up punctually at the same time each year yet catch some of us unprepared, the beginning of...

With the recent death of Pavarotti following a year in which so many other great singers have died it is starting to seem as if an entire ge...