By Paul Horsley Since making a huge impression here as the Countess Almaviva at the Lyric Opera’s of KC’s Marriage of Figaro just a few years back (in the company’s […]

By Paul Horsley La Bohème is a cradle-to-the-grave kind of opera. No matter where you are in life, it has something to offer. “Each time you revisit this piece you […]

By Paul Horsley The dazzling legacy of the Harriman-Jewell Series is defined not just by its milestones, such as tenor Luciano Pavarotti’s world recital debut in 1973 or the inaugural […]

By Paul Horsley Within the space of a month, from January 16th through February 15th of this year, no fewer than nine major classical instrumentalists performed in Kansas City: violinists […]

By Paul Horsley Gil Shaham has been playing Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin privately since he was a wunderkind, but only in the last few years has he […]

By Paul Horsley Love is like a virus: It infects not just the lovers themselves but all those around them. Armed with this premise Kansas City Repertory Theatre artistic director […]

By Paul Horsley Kansas Citians might look back at 2013 as a year of sea-change in the local performing-arts scene. It was the year the Lyric Opera spent record amounts […]

AN APPRECIATION By Paul Horsley Russell Patterson was a “player,” and not just in the musical sense. Anyone who played tennis or bridge or even poker with the Lyric Opera […]

By Paul Horsley When traditional holiday performances continue to meet public and critical success year after year, presenters may show understandable resistance to tinkering with them. The “if-it-ain’t-broke” cycle is […]

By Paul Horsley Devon Carney, who began as KC Ballet’s new artistic director in July, has made some tweaks to Todd Bolender’s Nutcracker for 2013, though most of the changes […]

By Paul Horsley It’s true that the production of The Nutcracker Todd Bolender created for the Kansas City Ballet is more than 40 years old, but through the years many […]

By Paul Horsley When a choir counts J.S. Bach among those who have led it over its 801-year history, and still functions in the church where the master and his […]

By Paul Horsley Just because Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem uses standard Catholic liturgy as texts doesn’t mean its messages are strictly Christian or even inordinately religious. Indeed its message of consolation […]

By Paul Horsley That the Lyric Opera’s new production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute is a banquet of visual delights is beyond question. Its wildly colorful scenic designs, digital animations […]

By Paul Horsley Artists are always being told to create art about what they know, even though many live such insulated lives that they know little beyond the world of […]

Paul Horsley Deborah Voigt is one of the great sopranos of our age or any other, and although her voice has diminished in recent years she can still delight an […]

By Paul Horsley Mozart’s The Magic Flute is so full of opportunities for visual display that an opera company would be lax not to take advantage of them. But hiring […]

By Paul Horsley In 2008 the world-renowned trumpeter and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Wynton Marsalis determined to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church with an ambitious mass for […]

By Paul Horsley What a delight it was to see the Dance Theatre of Harlem back on the local stage, in its first appearance on the Harriman-Jewell Series, or in […]

By Paul Horsley Deborah Voigt is at an enviable point in her life where she can make career choices on the basis of what she wants to do. “I’m very […]

By Paul Horsley Violinist Stefan Jackiw’s official bio and press clippings read pretty much like those of any young musician these days. He is “one of his generation’s most significant […]