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The article discusses soprano singer Sondra Radvanovsky who plans to portray three queens in three separate operas at New York, New York's Metropolitan Opera (Met) in 2016, and it mentions how Radvanovsky took on the role of Queen Anne Boleyn in the opera "Anna Bolena." According to the article, Radvanovsky will appear as Mary, Queen of Scots in the opera "Maria Stuarda" in January 2016 and as Queen Elizabeth I in the opera "Roberto Devereux" in spring 2016.

The article focuses on the career of opera singer Plácido Domingo. Topics include the evolution of Domingo's role choices and changes in his voice from tenor to baritone, the longevity of his career, and his childhood growing up in an opera company. The opera singer's approach to portraying villainous characters and his return to a heroic role in the 2014 Salzburg Festival production of "Il Trovatore" are discussed.

The author discusses fan fiction created around the plots of famous operas, examining how many fans share their ideas of what happens to characters online. Particular attention is given to the author's ideas on characters from "Rigoletto," as she notes the production has been revived by director Michael Mayer at the Met in New York City beginning November 11, 2013.

The article features Constantine Maroulis, former "American Idol" finalist. It says that Maroulis has obtained a dual role in the revival of the musical "Jekyll and Hyde," by Frank Wildhorn, to be performed at the Marriott Marquis Theater in New York City on April 18, 2013. It mentions that Maroulis has made his first Broadway in the musical version of "The Wedding Singer" in September 2006.

This article presents an interview with singer Anna Netrebko. She criticized her performances in the opera "Don Pasquale" as being too sharp. She talked about postponing a 2006 recital at Carnegie Hall. She also spoke of trying to prepare for singing in Bellini's "Norma," and the necessity of perfection for that particular role.

The article presents information about Italian tenor Antonello Palombi. On December 11, 2006, Palombi was suddenly thrust onstage to perform in the ongoing opera Aida after the scheduled tenor Roberto Alagna walked off. Palombi, who played the role of Radames after replacing Alagna, said that he was proud to perform satisfactorily under such pressure.

Discusses the career of opera singer Plácido Domingo and his latest role in the Metropolitan Opera's production of "Cyrano." Review of Domingo's past performances which include "Otello" and "Carmen"; Comments from Domingo regarding what roles interest him and his willingness to try new things as a performer; Author's view that more obscure operatic works gain little attention until they are performed by big stars such as Domingo.

A literary criticism of the opera "La Clemenza di Tito," by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is presented. It outlines the form of the opera, such as its plot, themes and characters. It examines characters' tone and attitude, music used in the opera and its appeal to contemporary audiences. It includes information on the opening of the opera in November 16, 2012 at the Metropolitan Opera.

Cooperstown, N.Y., where the American soprano Elizabeth Futral recently began a 13-performance run in ''The Music Man'' at the Glimmerglass Festival, is 139 miles from Manhattan, where she will perform Kaija Saariaho's operatic monodrama ''Emilie'' beginning on Thursday evening as part of the Lincoln Center Festival. Yet her physical commute this weekend will be negligible compared to the psychic distance between Marian the Librarian and Emilie du Chatelet. Ms. Futral bridges it easily, perhaps because she embodies a bit of both women: the forthright Marian Paroo and the brilliant Emilie, a pioneering 18th-century physicist, mathematician and thinker whose brief, turbulent life included extended affairs with Voltaire. Ms. Futral is the most gracious of magnolias, with just enough steel in mind, will and spirit to have propelled her to the top of her profession and kept her there for some two decades. Her luscious, pliant voice has allowed her -- at 48, an age at which many lyric coloratura sopranos begin winding down -- to take cannily calculated steps outside her comfort zone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

CHARLESTON, S.C. -- One thing that makes this beautiful coastal city an ideal site for an arts festival is the degree to which past and present intermingle. In the historic part of town, where much of the Spoleto Festival USA and the associated Piccolo Spoleto Festival take place, unbroken stretches of 18th- and 19th-century buildings, rows of palmetto trees and, in places, cobblestone streets, give Charleston the look of a distant, more elegant age. Yet the ground floors of many of these buildings have pricey art galleries and trendy restaurants. A short walk uptown from this preserved district, new hotels and spiffy shopping areas have sprung up on streets that were quaint but slightly seedy when I first attended the festivals in the early 1980s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The second act of ''Stick Fly,'' Lydia R. Diamond's meaty soap opera about an affluent black family, begins with its youngest character, 18-year-old Cheryl, the daughter of the family's maid, on the phone in the family's well-appointed kitchen. She's getting bad news from her mother. Life-changing bad news. In a play where there is almost always a crowd of people onstage who are at cross purposes about race, class or gender, it's a rare moment of privacy. And for Condola Rashad, the actress who plays Cheryl and is making her Broadway debut in ''Stick Fly,'' it's the toughest scene in the show. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mac Wellman's ''3 2's; or AFAR'' offers the playwright's typically dizzying and fluid unfurling of language. References, registers and nonsense rhymes fly with madcap precision. But afterward what rises in the mind's eye, unsettlingly, is not a snippet of dialogue but an image: a masked performer, suspended upside down and making her way across the balcony's black metal railing. She hangs loose and utterly impenetrable, a person turned into a puppet turned into a giant sloth. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Unterberg Poetry Center at the 92nd Street Y has announced its 2008-9 season of literary events. Highlights include ''A Celebration of Maurice Sendak,'' with Tony Kushner, Meryl Streep, James Gandolfini, Dave Eggers, Spike Jonze and others, on Sept. 15; and ''The Lyricist's Voice,'' a conversation with the composer John Adams, on Oct. 6, the week before his ''Doctor Atomic'' opens at the Metropolitan Opera. The season will also feature readings and appearances by a host of literary lions and lionesses, including John Ashbery, Toni Morrison, Junot Diaz, Kay Ryan, W. S. Merwin, Jamaica Kincaid, E. L. Doctorow, Marilynne Robinson, Charles Simic, Ursula K. Le Guin, Yusef Komunyakaa, Isabel Allende, Aleksandar Hemon, Jorie Graham, T. C. Boyle, Lucille Clifton, Amitav Ghosh, Cynthia Ozick,David Grossman, James Wood and many others. Tickets go on sale Thursday. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article reports that actor Harvey Keitel will play the role of the character Jerry Springer in the opera "Jerry Springer: The Opera." The opera will be presented in concert version at Carnegie Hall during January 29-30, 2008.

The article presents the author's views on the classification of voice-type in opera. The German opera system distinguishes 25 voice types in opera. According to the author, the compartmentalization of voice types never works completely. It restricts the singing capacity of a soprano. He believes that changing voice type from one to another compartment can be difficult for a soprano, but if singing is taken as a complete exercise, singers can easily sing the voice-type of other compartment.

The article reports on the decision of actress Jan Maxwell to quit as one of the cast of theatrical production "Entertaining Mr. Sloan" in the U.S.

Analyzes the use of the master-servant paradigm in operas by Mozart and da Ponte. how class conflict was a preoccupation among minds of their age; Their treatment of the paradim in their opera `Cosi Fan Tutte.'