A drumroll, please, for the 24-year-old violinist Randall Goosby, whose debut album Roots (Decca) drops on June 25. We opened our May 30 show with three tracks:

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Who knew? In 1823, believe it or not, the American consul in Vienna approached Beethoven on behalf of the eight-year-old Handel and Haydn Society, in Boston, to commission an oratorio in English. What if, rather than breathing his last in 1827, Beethoven had lived, accepted the offer, and crossed the Atlantic in 1833 to compose a late masterwork? In the novel Mr. Beethoven, Paul Griffiths offers an answer.

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Drums and trumpets, please! From a dark year that has dragged like a decade, the Paris Opéra roars back with the world premiere of Marc-André Dalbavie's great adventure, Le Soulier de Satin (The Satin Slipper), set to a libretto by Raphaèle Fleury after the play by Paul Claudel (1868–1955). Bathed in a glow of Roman Catholic mysticism, Claudel's scenario poses the question: Can unconsummated passion light the way to salvation? The epic action unfurls amid the discoveries and conquests of Spain's Golden Age, as the 16th century bleeds into the 17th, occasionally even spiraling to the heavens. Deeds of derring-do jostle low comedy. Joseph Ratzinger—Pope Benedict XVI to you—is said to be a big fan.

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"How I wish I'd been a prima donna!" To judge from the title of her autobiography, Christa Ludwig's dreams of glory never quite came true. There's just no pleasing some people. Audiences as well as the world's top impresarios and maestros treated Ludwig as royalty, in a class of her own. Never mind that she never attempted Wagner's Isolde, a role she coveted and had offers for, but only the Liebestod, Isolde's rapturous finale. In the theater, she settled for Isolde's confidante Brangäne—a move that extended her career by who can guess how many years, luckily for her, luckily for us.

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From Shakespeare to more Shakespeare, by way of Broadway. "I Hate Men!" a ferocious Kelli O'Hara announced, in the first of three excerpts from the 2019 revival of Cole Porter's Kiss Me, Kate! Next up: Will Chase followed with the tempestuous yearning of "Were Thine That Special Face," and finally Kate's quiet bombshell moment, "I Am Ashamed That People Are So Simple."

Say again?! In The Taming of the Shrew, Porter's Shakespearean source, wasn't it women who were so simple? And didn't Porter follow Shakespeare's lead?

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