Ilana Walder-Biesanz

'Dear Master' made me want to pick up another George Sand novel. I think I’ll go do just that.

San Francisco’s Merola Opera Program is one of the most prestigious training programs in the world for young singers. Its participants can already boast of long singing resumes and top awards, and its alumni include superstars like Anna Netrebko, Joyce DiDonato, and Thomas Hampson. The extraordinary talent displayed at...

Comic operas are rarely hilarious. A good Fledermaus or Barber of Seville might get you chuckling on occasion, but it won’t have you holding your head in your hands fighting bursts of uncontrollable laughter. Normally, The Abduction from the Seraglio wouldn’t either, but Josh Shaw’s libretto and staging, which...

Go see this play.

After ten years as the general director of San Francisco Opera, David Gockley is retiring. To chronicle his contributions to American opera would take a book, not a blog post (and in fact there is one). But the Celebrating David! gala concert on Thursday night focused on two of...

Sex and violence dominate Calixto Bieito's Carmen, which paints a gritty, unidealized picture of poverty and abuse.

Watching a made-for-television Cinderella by Rogers and Hammerstein is an important part of growing up in a musical theater-loving family. I’ve wasted evenings debating the merits of Julie Andrews (1957), Lesley Ann Warren (1965), and Brandy Norwood (1997) in the title role. Incredibly, despite its place in the canon,...

Mention Frank Loesser to a musical theater fan, and you’re sure to hear about Guys and Dolls. The Most Happy Fella is unlikely to be discussed, because it is so rarely performed these days. It’s less consistently toe-tapping than Loesser’s more lasting hit, but it makes up for it...

“What makes a lion a lion?” Alone onstage with seven guitars, Benjamin Scheuer sings, “My father has an old guitar, and he plays me folk songs.” That’s the start of Benjamin’s passion for music, but it’s also a cause for his troubled relationship with his father. Depressed and quick to...

In 2004, Finding Nemo won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film. It beat out a very different finalist: the bizarre French-Québécois film The Triplets of Belleville. This near-silent movie with a swinging jazz score is an imaginative adventure set during the Tour de France. The cyclist Champion is...