The Vargas Blog

The charming and imaginative new Stefan Herheim production of Richard Wagner 's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg , conducted by Daniele...

It is good news to see Woody Allen at the top of his game once again with his latest film Blue Jasmine . This weekend, it was very reward...

Here are only mere seconds of the 10 minute Bayreuth "standing boovation" that greeted Frank Castorf and his production team a...

With all the controversy going on in Bayreuth over Frank Castorf 's bicentennial staging of The Ring of the Nibelung , the Salzburg F...

As part of the Richard Wagner year that is being celebrated all over the world, Bayreuth has commissioned 500 statues of the composer, e...

It's opening night at the Bayreuth Festival , and Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Josef Stalin, and Mao Zedong will not be in attendance. T...

The maximalism of Baz Luhrmann can easily put you off. He doesn't so much adapt F. Scott Fitzgerald 's The Great Gatsby as he hi...

Today, May 22, we celebrate the birth of Richard Wagner .  The composer was born in Leipzig, Germany in 1813, 200 years ago today.  But ho...

In the twilight of his years Maurizio Pollini continues to amaze with the aristocratic virtuosity and technical dexterity that has garner...

The Metropolitan Opera is in the middle of presenting three Ring Cycles this spring, and this afternoon was the premiere of Siegfried , t...

The American Composers Orchestra concert on Friday evening at Carnegie's Zankel auditorium, under the direction of George Manahan , e...

If you are a Spanish filmmaker and you are going to update Snow White and the Seven Dwarves you might as well pull all the stops and set ...

The New York Times Sunday magazine has a very interesting, in-depth article on Peter Gelb 's tenure as the Metropolitan Opera 's...

  Wieland Wagner ushered in the era of the director in opera with the reopening of the Bayreuth Festival in 1951.   His historic p...

 When I heard Parsifal at the Bayreuth Festival this summer, I wrote on this blog that the experience was like listening to the work for...

When militants stormed the United States embassy in Tehran in 1979 in retaliation for the U.S. sheltering the deposed Shah of Iran, more t...

When Dr. King Schultz ( Christoph Waltz ) learns that the slave Django ( Jamie Foxx ) is married to a woman named Broomhilda ( Kerry Washi...

Lincoln begins with a chaotic battle from the middle of the Civil War: brother against brother in hand-to hand butchery.  A scene that re...

The Philarmonia Orchestra under the baton of Esa-Pekka Salonen visited New York City earlier this week and presented two performances at...

When The Tempest , Thomas Adès 's opera based on Shakespeare 's play of the same name, premiered at the Royal Op...