Fat Lady Sings An operatic playlist: 1. "Phantom of the Opera," ...more

December 5, 2008

The opera season opens this weekend at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, a situation that gave us yet another chance to contemplate the fact that we've never really given opera a chance. It's a mistake we plan to rectify. ...more

December 4, 2008

It's a dreaded disease. The fourth-highest cause of cancer deaths in the United States, it's usually portrayed as an unstoppable, incurable killer. It has struck some high-profile figures: Hollywood actor Patrick Swayze has been diagnosed with it. Opera star Luciano Pavarotti and former Ronald Reagan aide Michael Deaver died of it. So, too, on July 25, did Randy Pausch, the former Carnegie Mellon University computer science professor whose "last lecture" before a university audience became a YouTube sensation and a best-selling book. ...more

August 11, 2008