ROME, Oct 20, 2007 (AFP) - Italian opera legend Pavarotti died with 18 million euros (25.7 million dollars) of personal debt, an Italian newspaper reported on Saturday.

The famous tenor's bank accounts were 11 million euros in deficit with another seven million in unpaid loans, said the daily La Repubblica.

'The fact that the maestro had debts is no secret for anyone,' said Giorgio Bernini, the lawyer for Pavarotti's second wife, Nicoletta Montovani.

CAEN, France, Oct 17, 2007 (AFP) - A stage lit by candlelight, men singing both the female and male roles, and historic costumes and acting: a troupe this week is re-enacting in the original baroque style a 17th century Roman opera -- 'Il Sant'Alessio' by Stefano Landi.

The original production was staged in Rome in 1632 at the palace of the powerful Barberini family, one of whom had become Pope Urbain VIII nine years earlier.

PARIS, Oct 11, 2007 (AFP) - The Lausanne Opera will perform Georges Bizet's 'Carmen' in 11 Japanese cities in October 2008, the Swiss institution's director announced here Thursday.

The director, Eric Vigie, told reporters in Paris that the Lausanne Opera would be the first Swiss francophone opera to tour Japan. The tour will be from October 9-28 and will include performances in Kobe, Osaka, Nagoya, Kagoshima and four in Tokyo.

PARIS, Oct 10, 2007 (AFP) - The young Swiss conductor Philippe Jordan will take over as music director at the Paris National Opera in 2009, the opera house announced Wednesday.

Jordan, who will be 33 on October 18, will take the helm of the 174-strong orchestra of France's leading opera company, becoming the first permanent conductor since American James Conlon, who left in 2004 after nine years in the post.

Since then, director Gerard Mortier has called on various conductors to make guest appearances including France's Sylvain Cambreling who has often taken the baton.

VIENNA, Sept 28, 2007 (AFP) - Russian star soprano Anna Netrebko, who outraged Austrian audiences earlier this year for cancelling a concert at the prestigious Salzburg Festival, is to give a gala charity performance in Vienna in November, her record company said Friday.

Netrebko will perform with the world-famous Vienna Philharmonic at the Palais Liechstenstein on November 8. The proceeds are to go to SOS Children's Villages, Universal Music said in a statement.

PARIS, Sept 27, 2007 (AFP) - British pop icon Damon Albarn brought his Chinese-themed opera project to Paris on Wednesday for its international debut, serving up a sumptuous fusion of Asian folklore, martial arts and music.

The former Blur frontman, whose latest interests are a far cry from his beginnings in 1990s Britpop, has entered new territory with his foray into classical music and opera -- albeit opera with a distinctly pop feeling.

BEIJING, Sept 26, 2007 (AFP) - The China National Grand Theatre staged its opening performance, with workers and evicted residents treated to one of the nation's most celebrated revolutionary ballets, state press said Wednesday.

Some 2,000 construction workers and people relocated to make way for the controversial theatre watched a performance of 'The Red Detachment of Women' in Tuesday night's soft opening, the Beijing Youth Daily said.

PARIS, Sept 25, 2007 (AFP) - After more than 15 years as one of the leading lights in British pop music, Damon Albarn is this week preparing for the international debut of his latest project.

A founding member of leading Britpop band Blur and one half of revolutionary 'virtual' group Gorillaz, Albarn has turned his attention to the unexplored terrain of mixing ancient Chinese folk music, opera and circus performance.

'Monkey, Journey to the West' arrives in Paris on Wednesday for an 18-night run at a theatre in the French capital before heading to Berlin next year.

BERLIN, Sept 22, 2007 (AFP) - The great-granddaughter of German composer Richard Wagner put herself forward Saturday to co-organise the Bayreuth festival dedicated to his works with German conductor Christian Thielemann.

Katharina Wagner, 29, has long been the favourite to succeed her father Wolfgang Wagner, who has run the festival since 1951, although other members of the Wagner clan hotly contest her claims.

BEIJING, Sept 18, 2007 (AFP) - Beijing's controversial China National Grand Theatre will open its doors on September 25 with a performance of one of the nation's most celebrated revolutionary ballets, officials said Tuesday.

The Red Detachment of Women ballet will grace the stage of the new opera house, designed by French architect Paul Andreu, as part of a series of performances in the coming weeks for selected guests, theatre officials said.

It will open to the public around the end of the year, they added.

PARIS, Sept 13, 2007 (AFP) - A full 30 years after her death, diva Maria Callas, the most celebrated opera singer of the post-World War II period, remains both a favourite for opera-lovers and a legend outside the world of classical music.

A figure of high drama both on and off-stage, Callas died alone in her Paris apartment aged only 53 on September 16, 1977. 'The gods were bored, they beckoned back their voice,' couture supremo Yves Saint Laurent said at the time.

ROME, Sept 6, 2007 (AFP) - The son of a music-loving baker, Luciano Pavarotti's pristine tenor voice brought opera to the masses, while his international superstar status put him regularly in the gossip column spotlight.

Hailed as the greatest tenor since his fellow Italian Enrico Caruso, Pavarotti sang before a televised audience of more than 1.5 billion for the 1990 World Cup finals. He was the first opera star to fill Madison Square Garden and thought nothing of appearing with pop stars such as the Spice Girls.

ROME, Sept 6, 2007 (AFP) - Opera giant Luciano Pavarotti died at his country home near his home town of Modena 'surrounded by fields and greenery,' the mayor of the Italian city told AFP.

The mayor, Giorgio Pighi, said Pavarotti died in the early hours of Thursday and that a funeral for the opera singer might be held Saturday.

'Pavarotti wanted to die at home. I saw him last week. He was very worn by the illness but he wanted to make conversation. We even spoke in the local dialect,' said the mayor.

Pighi honoured Pavarotti as 'a person of unequalled genius'.

ROME, Sept 6, 2007 (AFP) - Opera giant Luciano Pavarotti, who died Thursday, projected his formidable tenor voice far beyond the hallowed halls of opera houses, popularising his art along with Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras or in unexpected duos with James Brown or Sting.

'I opened the doors of music to everyone,' he once said. 'My voice makes people happy, it's my pride, my responsibility.'

ROME, Sept 6, 2007 (AFP) - The Italian opera singer Luciano Pavarotti, who has died aged 71, was considered one of the greatest voices of his generation, and achieved success well beyond the ranks of classical music enthusiasts.

Endowed with a powerful tenor voice, the most popular tonal range in opera, Pavarotti practiced his art both in traditional settings and in huge outdoor concerts, where he drew crowds in the hundreds of thousands.

VIENNA, Aug 9, 2007 (AFP) - Opera legend Placido Domingo will be awarded Thursday the Golden Order of Merit of the province of Salzburg where he is performing at the famed classical music festival, authorities said.

Domingo, 66, will be presented with the award backstage following his performance Thursday evening, almost exactly 32 years after he first appeared at the Salzburg Music Festival.

SALZBURG, Austria, Aug 7, 2007 (AFP) - Russian-born opera star Anna Netrebko is drawing fire at a landmark Austrian music festival for allegedly acting a bit too much like a diva.

The dark-eyed, sultry Netrebko, renowed both for her beauty and her magnificent soprano singing, has cancelled an appearance to perform a 'stabat mater' by Pergolese this week, saying she has laryngitis.

SALZBURG, Austria, Aug 4, 2007 (AFP) - The Austrian arts festival, the Salzburger Festspiele, presented Friday night a revival performance of 'Der Freischuetz' (The Marksman), the German romantic classic that set the stage for the works of Wagner.

The lively 'premiere', which included naked women at a devil's seance in a forest and freedoms taken with the libretto to get in criticism of the United States as a warmonger, got a mixed reception from the critical crowd in Salzburg, with boos and applause greeting director Falk Richter at the end of the performance.

BAYREUTH, Germany, Aug 3, 2007 (AFP) - Christoph Schlingensief's exasperating production of 'Parsifal', being revived for its final time this year, was loudly booed here on Thursday as it rounded off the glitzy premiere week of the Bayreuth Festival.

Schlingensief's wilfully oblique production, which has polarised Bayreuth audiences since it was first unveiled in 2004, again drew cat-calls and whistles this year even at the end of each of the first two acts.

BAYREUTH, Germany, Aug 2, 2007 (AFP) - German tenor Endrik Wottrich will not sing the role of Siegmund in the next performance of 'Die Walkuere' (The Valkyrie) here on Sunday, the organisers of the Bayreuth Festival announced on Thursday.

Wottrich is ill and will be replaced by US tenor Robert Dean Smith, at least for Sunday's performance, and it is still unclear whether he resume the role during the remainder of the season, a festival spokeswoman told AFP.

BAYREUTH, Germany, Aug 2, 2007 (AFP) - German playwright Tankred Dorst and his production team were loudly booed here on Wednesday night when the curtain came down on 'Twilight of the Gods', the final instalment of Dorst's banal and vapid production of Wagner's 'Ring'.

While the singers received rapturous applause from the audience in Bayreuth's legendary 'Festspielhaus', and conductor Christian Thielemann was greeted with standing ovations, a storm of enraged boos and whistles was let loose when Dorst and his team took their bows.

BAYREUTH, Germany, Aug 2, 2007 (AFP) - 'You have to be a bit of a Wagner nut to work here. After all, you're sacrificing your entire summer holiday. But for me, it's like walking in paradise. It's something special,' says Jan Ruedisueli, make-up artist at this year's Bayreuth Festival.

Ruedisueli, a 62-year-old Dutchman who worked at the Amsterdam opera for 30 years where he was the personal make-up artist and wig-maker of stars such as Joan Sutherland, has worked for the annual Richard Wagner Festspiele, the world's oldest summer music festival, for the past three years.

BAYREUTH, Germany, Aug 1, 2007 (AFP) - Sebastian Wittiber, first flautist in the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra, says it as a 'great honour' to play at the world-famous Richard Wagner Festspiele, the month-long summer music festival dedicated exclusively to the composer's works.

But the 39-year-old flautist from Frankfurt says that the rehearsals, five hours a day, can be tough and exhausting.

BAYREUTH, Germany, July 31, 2007 (AFP) - Tankred Dorst's uninspiring production of Richard Wagner's four-part 'Ring' cycle, being revived here for the first time, continued here on Monday with a performance of 'Siegfried' that was marred by patchy singing.

While German maestro Christian Thielemann continued to work magic in the unseen pit with the glorious Bayreuth Festival Orchestra, the singing onstage was anything but world-class.

SALZBURG, July 30, 2007 (AFP) - Argentinian-born conductor Daniel Barenboim said Monday he wanted to perform with his mixed Arab-Israeli orchestra in the Middle East to promote tolerance.

'Of course, more even than in Salzburg or another Western concert hall we would like to play in the Middle East, in towns where the conflict is raging,' Barenboim told a press conference at the Salzburg festival.

'Do you have the phone number of one of the heads of state in question?' the conductor and pianist, who holds Argentinian, Israeli and Spanish citizenship, asked.

BAYREUTH, Germany, July 29, 2007 (AFP) - The first week of the 96th Bayreuth Festival reached its halfway mark here on Saturday with a musically satisfying performance of 'Die Walkuere' (The Valkyrie).

Canadia's Adrianne Pieczonka stole the show with her rich, gleaming mezzo and gripping portrayal as the unhappy Sieglinde, who falls in love with her long-lost brother Siegmund.

BAYREUTH, Germany, July 27, 2007 (AFP) - The 96th Bayreuth Festival continued here with the first revival of Tankred Dorst's much-derided production of Richard Wagner's massive four-part 'Ring' cycle.

German star conductor Christian Thielemann, long seen as the Bayreuther Festspiele's secret GMD (general music director), received standing ovations at the end of the first instalment of the tetralogy, 'Das Rheingold' (The Rhinegold).

It is set to continue Saturday, with the second part, 'Die Walkuere' (The Valkyrie).

BAYREUTH, Germany, July 27, 2007 (AFP) - On the second day of this year's Bayreuth Festival, Philippe Arlaud's well-loved production of 'Tannhaeuser' received tumultuous applause.

A day after 29-year-old Katharina Wagner was booed off the stage for her production of 'The Mastersingers of Nuremberg', Thursday's audience was much better disposed to Arlaud's reading of Richard Wagner's romantic opera.

His production, which dates back to 2002, is being revived for the very last time this year after a year-long break in 2006.

BAYREUTH, Germany, July 25, 2007 (AFP) - Katharina Wagner, the 29-year-old great-granddaughter of composer Richard Wagner, was loudly booed at her directorial debut at the opening of this year`s Bayreuth Festival on Wednesday.

The first-night audience of the 96th Bayreuther Festspiele, which began with Katharina`s eagerly anticipated new reading of 'The Mastersingers of Nuremberg', jeered and whistled when the willowy blonde took her bows after the final curtain came down.

BAYREUTH, Germany, July 25, 2007 (AFP) - The 96th Richard Wagner Festival was set to open here Wednesday with the premiere of a brand-new staging of the composer`s controversial opera, 'The Mastersingers of Nuremberg', directed by his 29-year-old great-granddaughter, Katharina.

BAYREUTH, Germany, July 24, 2007 (AFP) - When the curtain rises on this year`s Bayreuth Festival, the director of the opening production -- a brand new staging of of Richard Wagner`s most controversial opera, 'The Mastersingers of Nuremberg' -- will be nowhere to be seen.

Or that, at least, is what the director -- the composer`s 29-year-old great-granddaughter, Katharina -- claims.

'The excitement is simply too much. I`m worried that the singers will pick up on my nervousness,' the willowy blonde said in one of countless newspaper interviews recently.

BAYREUTH, Germany, July 23, 2007 (AFP) - The Bayreuth Festival, the annual month-long summer music fest dedicated to Richard Wagner (1813-1883), is staging seven different operas this year.

The 96th Richard Wagner Festspiele, opening July 25 and running until August 28, includes a new production of the composer's only 'comic' opera, 'The Mastersingers of Nuremberg', in an eagerly awaited staging by Wagner's 29-year-old great-granddaughter, Katharina.

BAYREUTH, Germany, July 23, 2007 (AFP) - Many roads lead to the Bayreuth Festival, the prestigious annual month-long summer music fest celebrating the works of Richard Wagner.

But whichever the path, entry to the legendary 'Festspielhaus' on Bayreuth`s famed 'Green Hill' remains one of the hardest-to-come-by tickets on the opera and classical music scene today.

Unfortunately, the simplest most obvious way -- application by post -- is perhaps also the longest and the one requiring most stamina.