Gluck's operatic masterpiece, the much-neglected Iphigenia In Tauris, premiered this weekend at Seattle Opera. Inexplicably, it's only been staged once at the New York Met, and that was some 90 years ago. In Seattle, never. But it's suddenly hot: San Francisco and Chicago did a co-production with Covent Garden last year, and the Met, looking to spread the cost and risk of staging new productions, asked Seattle to co-sponsor a new Iphigenia, enlisting the artistic team of director Stephen Wadsworth and stage designer Thomas Lynch. more ›

Ballet Imperial: it's tutus and tights and corps-de-ballet clockwork, but Balanchine's choreography is nothing to sneeze at. Maybe just that one scissor-kicky thing we secretly call "the Snoopy Dance," and therefore have trouble taking seriously. Otherwise, if the dancers were wearing skis, it'd be a black diamond run. This one shows up in the All Balanchine program that starts this weekend. more ›

"What passion cannot music raise and quell?" It's a question Dryden asked centuries ago, as relevant in today's rap lyrics as in the vocal and instrumental curlicues of the Baroque era: joys, hopes, sorrows and fears can all be expressed in verse. Some 200 years before Mozart, 400 years before 50 Cent, Eminem and Three 6 Mafia, Handel was laying the groundwork. more ›

Last Saturday night Seattlest trundled off to McCaw Hall for opening night of Die Fledermaus (running through January 28). We were a little doubtful about just how much fun the operetta (a word that means, "before there were Broadway musical-comedies") would be. General Director Speight Jenkins had cast some giant-voiced Wagnerians in the leads of a lithe, witty farce and it seemed counterintuitive, to be frank with you. With an icing-thin plot involving an extended, not-very-funny practical joke, Fledermaus only works if the Viennese tendency to waltz in the face of disaster perfectly balances the sad reality of a couple who have gotten tired of each other and are looking elsewhere for fun. more ›