Step-Mama’s Boy
Verdi’s season-opening Don Carlo from the Teatro San Carlo, Naples
A Different Kind of Holiday
How to enjoy Christmas alone in the big city
Fighting Spirit
For World Opera Day, seven companies join forces to showcase Ukraine’s Golden Crown
Suzanne Vega Is Watching You
The singer-songwriter performs her folk-pop hits at City Winery in Greenwich Village
Fetch Me Her Slippers
From Frankfurt, Rimsky-Korsakov’s shaggy-dog Christmas Eve, a tranche of tsarist holiday cheer that resembles Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker not at all
Borodino or Bust
Sergei Bondarchuk’s monumental 60s film series, War and Peace, is as relevant than ever
Picture Imperfect
Damien Chazelle calls his new film, Babylon, “a hate letter to Hollywood and a love letter to movies”
Out for Blood
A century after Nosferatu’s release, Berlin’s National Gallery explores the enduring influence of F. W. Murnau’s vampire film
And the Award Goes to…
At the 2022 International Opera Awards, Kris Defoort’s The Time of Our Singing wins for best World Premiere
Animal Instinct
A new film by the Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski offers a prescient look at mankind today, through the eyes of a sympathetic, non-human protagonist
Last Laugh
From the National Theatre, London, a rare revival of George Farquhar’s The Beaux’ Stratagem
A Mania for Egyptomania
Early next month, the “Magnificent Jewels” sale at Sotheby’s New York will include nearly a dozen superb pieces of Egyptian Revival jewelry
All Roads Lead to Paolo Di Paolo
Ahead of a new movie by Bruce Weber on the forgotten photographer and chronicler of postwar Italy, we collect some of his most memorable pictures
Yabba Dabba Doo!
With two sellout world tours and 430 million downloads, Britain’s most successful comedy podcast, My Dad Wrote a Porno, has finally reached its climax
Otello in Athens
Robert Wilson tackles Verdi in the birthplace of tragedy
A Night at the Odeon
Jay McInerney, Emma Cline, and Iké Udé gathered at the Tribeca restaurant in celebration of AIR MAIL’s Downtown Set
How Hip-Hop Was Made
After photographing London’s nascent punk scene, Janette Beckman moved to New York to chronicle hip-hop’s early days and founding artists—A Tribe Called Quest, Run-DMC, and LL Cool J among them
Ludlow, Lady Gaga, and Me
In 2006, Pianos, on Ludlow Street, was a divey service-industry spot attracting the likes of Sweetbitter author Stephanie Danler—and a pre-fame Lady Gaga
Singing the Lady Electric
In the five decades since Jimi Hendrix founded Electric Lady, on West Eighth Street, the music studio has kept its look—and caliber—intact
Sunglasses After Dark
A guided tour of CBGB, the Mudd Club, Tunnel, and downtown’s other lost nightlife haunts
Yoko Before John
To understand the most misunderstood woman of the last half-century, you have to go back to the beginning
Metaphysical Graffiti
For the last decade, Blake Kunin has photographed members of the city’s prolific tag crews at work. His pictures memorialize their conquests—and a city whose street-art scene lives on
