A first-class singing actor, the soulful British baritone Simon Keenlyside is barnstorming Europe this fall as Verdi’s Rigoletto, Macbeth, and Germont, the prig who forgivably yet unforgivably comes between his son and the fallen Violetta of La Traviata. But Keenlyside is a superlative recitalist, too, and his ingeniously curated program A Vagabond’s Dream is one not to be missed. Here’s what an unnamed copywriter—probably Simon himself—has to say about it: “In turn a symbol of freedom, imagination, escape, and independence, the vagabond has haunted the imagination of artists and poets as well as philosophers. In the work of Robert Schumann, he takes the form of a lonely minstrel who asks his king for a simple cup of wine; in that of Gustav Mahler, that of a saint who speaks to animals. And while Richard Strauss takes you on nocturnal wanderings, Francis Poulenc gives you a taste of a painter’s Parisian vie de bohème. Each of their songs is an invitation to wander and dream.” —Matthew Gurewitsch