Free Republic

Phyllis Curtin, an American soprano celebrated as a champion of new music, died on Sunday at her home in Great Barrington, Mass. She was 94... A mainstay of the New York City Opera in the 1950s and ’60s, Ms. Curtin was noted for the purity of her voice, the sensitivity of her musical phrasing and the crystalline perfection of her diction. On the opera stage and in recital, she gave the premieres of dozens of works by 20th-century composers — “more first, and last, performances than any singer in history,” as she was fond of saying, ruefully...

Julius Rudel, the Austrian-born conductor who raised the New York City Opera to a venturous golden age with highbrow music for the masses and a repertory that, like him, bridged the Old and New Worlds, died on Thursday at his home in New York. He was 93. His death, announced by his son, Anthony, came eight months after his beloved and financially struggling City Opera filed for bankruptcy and closed its doors.

It may be curtains for the New York City Opera. The broke opera company, which is entangled in a bitter contract dispute with two unions, says it plans to lock out its musicians today, throwing the future of the company into doubt.