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"Go, thoughts, on wings of gold": did one chance encounter really lead to Verdi's first big hit?

Strauss wasn't the only composer to take on the story of Salome--and Massenet's version was denounced as "incendiary" by the director of the Paris Opera.

The late Ellen Willis was the first pop-music critic for The New Yorker. A new anthology, Out of the Vinyl Deeps, collects her thoughts on Dylan, Joplin and The Rolling Stones, among others. Critic Ken Tucker says the anthology "resurrects a nearly lost, vital, invaluable voice" in pop music.

Science all but confirms that humans are hard-wired to respond to music. Studies also suggest that someday music may even help patients heal from Parkinson's disease or a stroke. In The Power of Music, Elena Mannes explores how music could play a role in health care.

Giving some R-E-S-P-E-C-T to the 'Othello' story in its first operatic version — written some 70 years before Verdi's far more famous work.

A water nymph sacrifices her immortality for the love of a prince, only to be rejected. But somehow, this fairy-tale inspired opera still has a romantic ending, if not a happy one.

Two macho types hatch a silly test to prove the unswerving loyalty of their girlfriends, in a comedy by Mozart that goes deeper than farce.

Songwriter Hugh Martin, who co-wrote the classic song "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" for Judy Garland's 1944 movie, Meet Me in St. Louis died on Friday. He was 96. Fresh Air remembers Martin with highlights from a 1989 interview.

Mozart's premier creative partnership with Lorenzo Da Ponte produced a masterpiece for the ages, and one of the only successful sequels to an existing plot. This comic opera continues where playwrite Beaumarchais' The Barber Of Seville leaves off.

Rossini was a genius composer, but he was also practical. After moving to France he needed a quick hit, so he remade one of his earlier operas, Maometto II, a story of conflicting passions and divided loyalties.