The Vargas Blog

It if happens once, it's a fluke. But if it happens three times, then we can actually say that a trend has been born in Tinsel Town. I...

The Oscars are finally here. I predict the following will be the big winners tonight: BEST PICTURE: "Birdman" BEST ACTOR: Edd...

Eugene O'Neill , America's greatest and most celebrated playwright, spent the last years of his productive life exorcising the dem...

A pro-Ukrainian protester jumped on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera last Thursday, and held up a sign equating Vladimir Putin with Ado...

When they tell the story of the Peter Gelb years at the Metropolitan Opera , and they get down to the new productions that he brought to ...

What an interesting year in movies 2014 was! Once again, the small, indie film is being given a chance to take center stage in this year...

The Interview , out on limited theatrical release and VOD as a result of the Sony Pictures hacking scandal and alleged threats from the g...

The Otto Schenk , Günther Schneider-Siemssen production of Richard Wagner 's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg is back at the Metropoli...

 Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) is a major achievement from Alejandro G. Iñárritu , the director of Amores Perros and ...

The Death of Klinghoffer , music by John Adams and the libretto by Alice Goodman is scheduled to premiere at the Metropolitan Opera tonig...

The trick with the early operas of Giuseppe Verdi , from the conductor's point of view, is to treat them with the same respect as his ...

The rumors are that French tenor Roberto Alagna is discussing a production of Lohengrin at the Bayreuth Festival , with Anna Netrebko ,...

The Washington National Opera announced their complete casting for its first full presentation of Richard Wagner 's Ring Cycle . Thr...

In an acting tour-de-force, Steve Carell throughout the film Foxcatcher , keeps his head raised at an unnatural, arrogant angle, as if to...

On paper, it must have looked like the perfect concept: iconoclast director Abel Ferrara to helm a biopic of Italian Marxist writer, poet...

Screenwriter Bruce Wagner introduced today's showing of the film Maps to the Stars at the New York Film Festival by warning us that...

If a work of art is deemed controversial, the passage of time will surely erase whatever ills people accuse it of. It happened with W.A. M...

A strike at the Metropolitan Opera has been averted as the house management and various unions have agreed to new contract terms. For tho...

Louis Langrée put together an interesting concert to end the Mostly Mozart festival at Lincoln Center this weekend. He chose the 1973 pi...

We Are Not Ourselves the powerful first novel by my friend Matthew Thomas is due to hit bookstores all over America tomorrow.  I was luc...