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Returning stars and high-profile company debuts contributed panache to the energy-charged atmosphere.

Jahja Ling and the SDS gave a luminous performance of Mahler's Sixth, clearly showing his deep love for the composer.

San Diego Opera's main stage offering proved that even a warhorse can remain thoroughly enchanting when a production looks and sounds as beautiful as this company’s Madama Butterfly.

Tosca’s popularity stems not only from its music, but also from the inherent truth in its drama and its in-depth portrayal of unrestrained human passions. 

The San Diego Symphony presented a glittering holiday gift to audiences with its final Jacobs Masterworks program of 2015

To celebrate another landmark season, San Diego Symphony Music Director Jahja Ling brought forth a multifaceted program featuring star Chinese pianist Yuja Wang.

The José “Pepe” Martínez/Leonard Foglia collaborative team returns to explore Mexico’s volatile history, search of one’s self, wrought with emotional strife in this beautifully woven Mariachi opera.

With an uncertainly looming, the San Diego community rallied behind its beloved opera company to rescue, resuscitate and revamp while celebrating 50 years of commitment to the arts.

Zukerman, master of the violin, viola and baton, displayed his many creative capabilities with panache this weekend with the San Diego Symphony.

James Robinson's production of Adams' Nixon in China hits its stride at San Diego Opera. 

San Diego’s Copley Symphony Hall resounded with the noble key of C major via Mozart and Schubert. 

A well-rehearsed and cohesive Bohème in San Diego, although with some vocal disappointments. 

The European continent met the British Isles in this weekend’s San Diego Symphony program. 

Music Director Jahja Ling waited until more than a decade of his tenure with San Diego Symphony had passed before programming Mahler’s Symphony no. 7, the first in the orchestra's 103-year history.

There’s always a reason to celebrate Sibelius. The addition of French works to San Diego Symphony’s offerings this weekend provided a panoply of tastes to the musical palate. 

The much-anticipated San Diego Symphony OPUS event commemorated the Greatest Generation with Maestro Jahja Ling programming works of Leonard Bernstein and Rachmaninoff, composers active during that generation’s era, to bookend excerpts from Bizet’s ever-popular L’Arlésienne Suites. 

Coupled with its exquisite landscape, the mystery and legend that permeate Scotland’s atmosphere and history have inspired poets, artists and composers to capture its magic and distinctive folklore in evocative works of art. 

Ailyn Pérez and Stephen Costello open San Diego Opera's season in a generous duo recital.

If Russian-born pianist Kirill Gerstein were to launch into orbit, he would far outdistance the Soyuz Space Station.

One of the most difficult transitions in the orchestral world is that of concertmaster, or leader, to concerto soloist. In last night’s concert, San Diego Symphony concertmaster Jeff Thayer proved himself up to that task, in one of the violin repertoire’s most demanding works Béla Bartók’s Violin Concerto no. 2.

Audience members were gifted with a rare treat Saturday night when Cleveland Orchestra Music Director Laureate Christoph von Dohnányi appeared as guest conductor with the San Diego Symphony.

Matthew Richard Martinez reviews San Diego Opera's season-closing production of Massenet's Don Quixote starring Ferruccio Furlanetto.

Love and death, jealousy and revenge, assassination and intrigue, culminating in a dazzle of song, dance, and a shower of sparkling gold: San Diego's A Masked Ball has it all.

Playing hard to get has its rewards. At least that's what Donizetti tells us in The Elixir of Love that gives a charming opera a fresh take. 

San Diego Opera's season opening Pagliacci focused squarely on the character of Tonio, in Andrew Sinclair's intriguing vision for this verismo classic. But the vocal performances were lacking. A director can only do so much.

Aida typifies all that is grand about opera. Its exotic setting, majestic music, and dramatic love triangle can make for an evening unique among performing arts events. It’s not a bad way to close an opera season either. San Diego Opera did so on Saturday, capping a uniformly satisfying season with Zandra Rhodes’ vibrant production that was refreshing and at times thrilling.

An internationally acclaimed singer with a career spanning well over 30 years should be granted almost whatever role he’d like to do. It would also be understandable if the singer chose a well-known, crowd-pleasing piece, but, as is quite evident by now, Ferruccio Furlanetto is not a typical singer.

To Camille Saint-Saëns, the operatic appeal of the biblical subject of Samson is perfectly understandable. Theoretically, the story contains the dramatic trappings of exciting grand opera: a romance, tragedy, larger-than-life setting, a ballet. But for current operatic audiences, it is easy for the subject to appear stale. With a lack of dramatic dynamism, staging this piece can be a challenge.

Chicks dig the high notes. The enduring popularity of Donizetti’s The Daughter of the Regiment seems to indicate as much. The plot is silly (even by opera’s standards) and much of the music is not as memorable as some of Donizetti’s more popular works.

As this year draws to a close, musicians and audiences have one last chance to celebrate the 200th birthday of Franz Liszt (1811-1886). The program this afternoon featured a couple of less-familiar orchestral pieces as well as the First and Second Piano Concerti. (Liszt’s orchestral works are infrequently performed, these ones especially so.