MILAN (Reuters) - Opera's most famously reckless libertine opened the season at Milan's opulent La Scala Wednesday inside a theater where the first round of applause was reserved for the architect of Italy's most restrained government in more than a decade.

MILAN (Reuters) - Opera's most famously reckless and doomed libertine opens the season at Milan's opulent La Scala theatre on Wednesday only weeks after flamboyant former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi exited the political stage pursued by scandal.

Italian maestro Riccardo Muti opened the Rome Opera season on Sunday with Giuseppe Verdi's "Macbeth" as an opera house little known on the international music circuit makes an ambitious bid for prestige.

Vienna State Opera

LONDON (Reuters) - Bosnian-born soprano Sena Jurinac, who made her name at the Vienna State Opera in the 1940s and 50s, has died aged 90, the opera house said on Wednesday.

In 1765, Frederick County in Maryland became the first colonial entity to repudiate the British Stamp Act.

Russia's renowned Bolshoi Theatre said on Wednesday it would force ballet and opera lovers to show ID when buying tickets in an attempt to combat touts who sell on tickets at a vast profit.

MOSCOW (Reuters Life!) - Moscow's Bolshoi and Milan's La Scala theaters must evolve to meet a growing demand for modern opera and ballet, La Scala's artistic director said on a visit to Moscow.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Moscow's Bolshoi and Milan's La Scala theatres must evolve to meet a growing demand for modern opera and ballet, La Scala's artistic director said on a visit to Moscow.

The city of Oslo on Thursday scrapped plans to move the Munch Museum, which holds the world's largest collection of works by expressionist master Edvard Munch, to a new spot near the new opera house.

Young Israeli soprano Chen Reiss, who has broken into the opera scene in the last few years, has taken up residence until January at Vienna's famed opera house, where she debuted on Wednesday.

LONDON (Reuters) - Spanish singer Placido Domingo marked his 40th anniversary at London's Royal Opera House with a gala concert late Thursday that was greeted with one of the longest and loudest curtain calls the venue has seen in years.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's Bolshoi Theater reopens on Friday with a star-studded gala performance after a more than six-year, $700-million restoration dogged by delays and financial scandal to reclaim its place as one of the world's cultural jewels.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's Bolshoi Theater reopens on Friday with a star-studded gala performance after a more than six-year, $700-million restoration dogged by delays and financial scandal to reclaim its place as one of the world's cultural jewels.

World-famous conductor Daniel Barenboim will take up the post of musical director at Italy's world renowned La Scala opera house from December until the end of 2016, the Milan theatre said on Thursday.

The Royal Opera House of Oman, the first of its kind in the Arabian Peninsula, was officially opened on Wednesday by the country's ruler Sultan Qaboos, himself a music enthusiast.

In Washington, the operatic drama is taking place offstage.

US conductor James Conlon, who worked at the Paris Opera for nearly a decade, likes the "visceral" passion of opera goers in Los Angeles even if he feels at home in more "intellectual" France.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Star singer Andrea Bocelli dazzled thousands with his signature brand of pop and opera in a cold, wet night in New York City's Central Park, which will be etched in his memory as an important career milestone.

A much-awaited Vienna Opera concert at Milan's Teatro alla Scala will go ahead despite earlier fears it might be cancelled because of a strike, the Vienna Staatsoper said Thursday.