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p>The Schenectady Light Opera Company is buying a former Catholic church downtown and will raise money to convert the property into a 300-seat theater and performing arts center. The Light Opera Company, an 83-year-old community theater group, signed a contract with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany to buy the former St. John the Baptist Church on Franklin Street. St. John the Baptist, said to be the oldest church in Schenectady, closed June 24, one of 33 worship sites that will be closed or merged in the diocese over the next three years. The first mass was held at St....

Bono and The Edge have described their forthcoming Spider-Man musical as "dizzy" and "not a straight take on the myth". Turn Off The Dark, the production the Dublin band has written music and lyrics for, is set to open on Broadway in New York in 2010. They also confirmed American actress Evan Rachel Wood would play the part of MJ and revealed more about the other characters. ...Bono said: "We've got a new villain, it's a girl. It's a very extraordinary role. We've taken it to a much more dizzy place than you'd expect. We've got big tunes. We're very...

A Norwegian firm has created technology that allows a Web browser to also function as a Web server, allowing individuals to share their files or communicate with others directly from their own computers. Opera Software's new technology is available as part of a beta for its browser, Opera 10. The feature, called Opera Unite, enables users to push content and establish communications without the need for third-party companies, such as Facebook, AOL or Flickr. Opera CEO Jon von Tetzchner called it a giant leap in the Internet, dubbing it Web 5.0. "We're enabling every single user, every single computer to...

a group of bewhiskered men gathered in the bowels of the Paris Opera to launch a project which, by definition, they could never see to fruition. First, 24 carefully-wrapped wax records were placed inside two lead and iron containers. These were then sealed and locked away in a small storage room, with instructions that they remain undisturbed for 100 years. The man behind this musical time-capsule was Alfred Clark, a New Yorker who headed the London-based Gramophone Company and provided the records. And, in truth, once the ceremony was over, he had achieved his primary objective of drawing attention to...

John Adams, one of the most revered living classical composers, has claimed that he is blacklisted in his native America and is being followed by the security services. The 61-year-old musician has accused the United States of being in the grip of a political and moral panic and has complained that he is now grilled by airport immigration officers whenever he flies home because of his controversial reputation.

IN DIRECTOR David Cronenberg's 1986 movie "The Fly" -- remember "Be afraid. Be very afraid"? -- scientist Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) commits a fatal error when he combines his own genes with those of a common housefly. At Los Angeles Opera these days, another dicey blending of species is taking place: Film directors are mutating into opera directors -- with, it's hoped, less alarming results.

Be afraid, be very afraid: David Cronenberg's 1986 horror flick, "The Fly," has undergone a bizarre metamorphosis. It's now an opera. The new incarnation, with tenor Placido Domingo conducting a score by Oscar-winning composer Howard Shore ("The Lord of the Rings"), isn't as gory as the movie. Audiences will be spared close-ups of the title character's fingernails falling off as he makes the transition from mild-mannered scientist to giant insect. Still, for an opera, it's pretty scary - even if there are touches of dark humor. Giggles broke out among those invited to Monday's dress rehearsal when a mezzo-soprano belted...

The French Revolution reveals the titanic struggle between good and evil. During the terror, over 40,000 Frenchmen were executed just for holding fast to the Catholic Faith and objecting to the worst excesses of the Committee of Public Safety. The blood lost in the years of 1792-1794 staggers the imagination even in the retelling and the campaign against the Church was as diabolical as it was cruel. Contemplative religious communities had been among the first targets of the fury of the French Revolution against the Catholic Church. Less than a year from May 1789 when the Revolution began with the...

...In January 1983, for a production of Strauss’s “Elektra” at the Canadian Opera Company, Mr. Mansouri introduced simultaneous English translation of the libretto on a horizontal video screen above the proscenium, a system popularly known as supertitles. (Mr. Mansouri used the term Surtitles, a registered trademark of the Canadian Opera Company.) Beverly Sills, who ran the New York City Opera at the time and was always on the lookout for ways to entice new audiences, quickly seized on the technology. She introduced a similar titling system at the New York State Theater in September 1983 for a new production of...

They should call it, Madame Butterfly Ballot: First it was the film and the book. Now the next stop for Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” is opera. La Scala officials say the Italian composer Giorgio Battistelli has been commissioned to produce an opera on the international multiformat hit for the 2011 season at the Milan opera house. The composer is currently artistic director of the Arena in Verona. Other suggested titles: The Liar of Seville; La BoPrivate Jet.

MILAN, Italy - First it was the film and the book. Now the next stop for Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" is opera. La Scala officials say the Italian composer Giorgio Battistelli has been commissioned to produce an opera [...] for the 2011 season

Opening of La Fille du regiment tonight. He repeated Ah! mes amis! The only thing I've heard encored in 35+ years at the Met is Ah Pensiero (a chorus piece). I've never heard a soloist repeat anything. ML/NJ

A German opera house is to unveil a provocative new production staged in the ruins of New York's World Trade Centre. It features naked pensioners and Mickey Mouse masks, Hitler salutes and Elvis impersonators. The self-consciously outrageous September 11th staging of Verdi's 'A Masked Ball' has been dreamed up by Austrian director Johann Kresnik. He has described the concoction as a populist critique of modern American society, aimed at showing up the disparities between rich and poor, which attracting a large audience. It will be a different, a provocative masked ball on the ruins of the World Trade Centre," he...

Italian tenor Giuseppe Di Stefano, to whom Luciano Pavarotti owed his launch to stardom, died in Milan on Monday. He was 86. Di Stefano died after a long coma caused by an attack during a robbery at his Kenyan holiday home in late 2004. Fellow Italian tenor Pavarotti, who died last year, had his big break when Di Stefano dropped out of a performance of "La Boheme" at London's Covent Garden in 1963. Pavarotti performed as the stand-in and a star was born. Local media said Di Stefano had never fully recovered from the savage beating he received from unknown...

The soprano Anna Netrebko, pregnant and engaged, has withdrawn from this summer’s Salzburg Festival, Agence France-Presse reported. She was scheduled to sing at the festival opposite the tenor Rolando Villazón in Gounod’s “Romeo and Juliet.” Ms. Netrebko, 36, a Russian-born Austrian citizen (right, with her finacé, the Uruguayan-born baritone Erwin Schrott, 35), is in Vienna, filming Puccini’s “Bohème” with Mr. Villazón as her leading man. She also was to sing in Massenet’s “Manon,” opening on April 4 at the Vienna State Opera, The Associated Press reported. Her manager, Jeffrey Vanderveen, said she “will keep her engagements as long as her...

Swedish opera star Tito Beltran has lashed out at his adoptive country ahead of his forthcoming rape trial, describing the country as "worse than Chile during the dictatorship". Believing himself to be the victim of ethnic discrimination, the popular tenor has vowed to burn his Swedish passport after the trial. "Swedes are as racist as they come," Beltran told Chilean newspaper Las Últimas Noticias. "This country doesn't tolerate 'blackheads' [svartskallar], of which I am one," he added. Beltran, 42, is accused of raping an 18-year-old nanny at a hotel in Nötesjö in Skåne following his participation in a Rhapsody in...

Over the years I have been an active participant in the ongoing fight for open and interoperable Web standards. I have always opposed those who would force proprietary technologies where open alternatives, often superior, exist. From 1994, I worked at CERN and W3C to help make sure there were good specifications for the Web. In 1999, I joined Opera to make sure there was at least one browser that implemented those specifications right. We have worked hard to do that. Unfortunately Microsoft's Internet Explorer, the biggest browser of all, did not. Today we have taken a stand. Opera has filed...

Metropolitan Opera – Live in HD Series – 2007-08 12/15/2007 - 4/27/2008 “The Met’s experiment of merging film with live performance has created a new art form,” said the Los Angeles Times of the groundbreaking series of live, high-definition performance transmissions to movie theatres around the world. In 2007-08, the Met offers its second season of international HD transmissions—this time with eight live events, up from last year’s six, and eight encore (recorded) events. Don’t miss the chance to enjoy thrilling, world-class opera at your neighborhood theatre!The first performance is this Sat. MET - Romeo et Juliette 12/15/2007 Roméo et...

Wife's tears for Pavarotti September 08, 2007 MOURNERS in their hundreds yesterday gathered in the town square of Modena to pay their respects to the town's favourite son, the tenor Luciano Pavarotti, who died on Thursday, aged 71. The crowd applauded as pallbearers carried the singer's white coffin into the cathedral, where a funeral today will draw dignitaries from opera, politics and culture. On the Piazza Grande, hundreds gathered for the first evening of public viewing. Police on horseback stood at attention as mourners shuffled up the steps into the cathedral to view Pavarotti, dressed in his trademark white tie...

ROME (AP) - Luciano Pavarotti, opera's biggest superstar of the late 20th century, died Thursday. He was 71. He was the son of a singing baker and became the king of the high C's. Pavarotti, who had been diagnosed last year with pancreatic cancer and underwent treatment last month, died at his home in his native Modena at 5 a.m., his manager told The Associated Press in an e-mailed statement. His wife, Nicoletta, four daughters and sister were among family and friends at his side, manager Terri Robson said. "The Maestro fought a long, tough battle against the pancreatic cancer,"...