George Loomis on “Un ballo in maschera,” at the Paris Opera.

The Rise and Fall of Athens’s Naval Mastermind,” by Michael Scott.

What do you give the man or woman who has everything, or many things? Here’s an idea: a new piece of music, freshly commissioned. In other words, you commission the piece, from a composer, in honor of ...

On political philosophy, Egon Schiele, Gainsborough, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Hogarth & more from the world of culture.

Warren Frye on “The Saga of the Earls of Orkney,” edited and translated by Judith Jesch.

Mahler’s Third began with a blatty onset in the horns—but, as they continued, those horns were arresting. Part I as a whole ...

Jane Coombs on a performance of the Sukhishvili Georgian National Ballet, at Carnegie Hall.

While Dueñas was playing, a woman sneaked down the aisle, back to her seat. Apparently, she had left after the Beethoven, not realizing that there would be an encore. This time she had her shoes—those ...

On Love, War, and Diplomacy: The Discovery of the Amarna Letters and the Bronze Age World They Revealed, by Eric H. Cline. In 1887, at the aptly named “Horizon of the Sun Disk,” a new dawn broke on ...

Lunching at Oxford in 1967 with Elizabeth Taylor and his Oxford mentor, Nevill Coghill, the actor Richard Burton was delighted by the appearance of another guest, Lord David Cecil, a Fellow of New ...