Mercury News, California — San Francisco Opera's general director David Gockley -- one of the most influential American impresarios, a commissioner of new operas, a technology innovator and smart businessman -- will step down in July 2016, after his tenth season with the compa... more info

Guardian Music — Operatic face-off shows that in Milan at least, Verdi v Wagner is still more of a cultural draw than Strictly v The X FactorIt's the ultimate operatic face-off. In the blue corner is Giuseppe Verdi, the great Italian humanist and hero of the Risorgim... more info

Guardian Music — George Osborne, Ed Vaizey and Michael Gove are just the latest in a long line of Tory politicians to adore the music of Richard Wagner. Shame they are damaging the art they loveThere's a continuing little squall over at the Telegraph's Mandrake colum... more info

Guardian Music — The Valkyries' Valkyrie, the toughest, wildest and maddest of the nine daughters of the god WotanIf you only know of her reputation, Brünnhilde is the Valkyries' Valkyrie, the toughest, wildest and maddest of the nine daughters of the god Wotan, who... more info

Guardian Music — Royal Opera House, LondonThe course of Wagner's Ring never did run smooth. Before this third instalment of the Royal Opera's revival, Wolfgang Koch, the Alberich, was stricken with a voice-eradicating cold. Jochen Schmeckenbecher woke up in Vienna un... more info

Guardian Music — Royal Opera House, LondonThere's a powerfully symbolic moment at the close of the second act of the Royal Opera's Die Walküre, and it wasn't dreamed up by director Keith Warner. Bryn Terfel's Wotan runs through John Tomlinson's Hunding with his spea... more info

Guardian Music — At 16 hours of music across four operas, Wagner's Ring Cycle requires serious stamina. So here are some reduced versions of the epic, including one that comes in at a single secondWagner's Ring. The biggest musical behemoth of them all. (Well, except... more info

Guardian Music — Rival legacies of classical pioneers to be honoured in 2013 with worldwide bonanza of recordings and performancesTwo of opera's greatest contemporaries, pioneers of their era, are to compete for public honour once again next year. January marks the b... more info

Guardian Music — Hungarian-British conductor Georg Solti is one of the most important figures in 20th-century music. On the centenary of his birth, his widow, Valerie, and some of the musicians he inspired celebrate his genius, his compassion and his legacyIn Februar... more info

Guardian Music — Royal Albert Hall, LondonIf the Berlin Phil has anything as prosaic as a comfort zone, the bulk of this programme wasn't it. Of the five composers in the first of their two Proms, only Wagner was an obvious fit for their trademark sound, as velvety a... more info