'Anna Nicole' @ NY City Opera in September

Anna Nicole is coming to New York City Opera! Mark-Anthony Turnage’s opera about the former Playboy playmate and tabloid fixture was a smash hit at the Royal Opera House in London two seasons ago. It will open the 2013-2014 City Opera season in September in a co-production with Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Details were announced a press conference on Tuesday morning at New York City Center.  More

San Francisco Symphony Cancels Carnegie Hall Dates as Strike Continues

The San Francisco Symphony's east coast tour, which was to include a two-night stand at Carnegie Hall on Wednesday and Thursday, has been canceled as a result of its five-day-old strike.

The orchestra announced shortly before 8 pm ET Sunday that the two sides had been unable to reach an accord, and remain far apart on issues of pay and benefits.  More

Violin That Was Played as Titanic Sank Found, Auction House Says

The violin played by the bandmaster of the Titanic as the oceanliner sank has been unearthed, a British auction house said Friday.

Survivors of the Titanic have said they remember the band, led by Wallace Hartley, playing on deck even as passengers boarded lifeboats after the ship hit an iceberg.

Hartley's violin was believed lost in the 1912 disaster, but auctioneers Henry Aldridge & Son say an instrument unearthed in 2006 and has undergone rigorous testing and proven to be Hartley's.
"It's been a long haul," said auctioneer Andrew Aldridge, explaining the find had initially seemed "too good to be true."

The auction house spent the past seven years and thousands of pounds determining the water-stained violin's origins, consulting numerous experts including government forensic scientists and Oxford University.  More