Performer: Won Whi Choi

A concert performance in Boston of Strauss' rarely heard opera, The Egyptian Helen. 

Mounted as part of Theater Erfurt's Romeo and Juliet, Zandonai's 1922 opera, in its first German production since 1942, offered a distinctive retelling of the tragedy of the 'star-cross'd lovers', both as a composition and in staging.

Musically inoffensive, the soaring Romanticism further makes sense given the story, in which a cast of García-Márquezian characters float down the Amazon River on a steamboat rife with passion and yearning.

The Montreal International Musical Competition, this year devoted to voice, ended on a high note with the Winners’ Gala Concert on June 8. First, Second and Third Prize winners sang two arias each, but, in a gratifying show of solidarity with the remaining finalists, the program afforded concertgoers the opportunity to hear the five runners-up as well.