The final days of the prestigious Salzburg Festival still offer highlights, hosting highly regarded international classic stars and reknown orchestras, as Maestro Riccardo Muti and his Orchestra Giovanile Luigi Cherubini, founded in 2004, who appear with a concert version of Giuseppe Verdi's early opera, Ernani. It is the touching lovestory of Ernani and Elvira and the heroic honorship of Ernani, fulfilling his deadly oath once he has succeeded in life. It is the puzzling...

Retirement in opera is a delicate thing, especially when it comes to legendary performers like Plácido Domingo. While I understand it is common in sport stadiums to see drunk frustrated fans screaming “TIME TO RETIRE” as an aging player is walking off the field, I had yet to see something comparable in an opera house. That was before last week. New York Times’ critic Anthony Tommasini’s review of this year’s Ernani at the Met in which he called for...