Miscellany: Shirley Verrett, etc.

A looming catastrophe for UK music schools? This Daily Telegraph story suggests as much, although the figures are disputed.... "As simple, seductive, and beautiful as breathing": Andrew Patner A Midsummer Night's Dream at Lyric Opera of Chicago.... Joseph Horowitz throws some cold water on the Met.... Donald Rosenberg covers the crisis at Opera Cleveland.... Remembering the great Shirley Verrett.... Mark Stryker reports on another concert by striking Detroit Symphony players.... Jens Laurson, of ionarts, interviews Rudolf Buchbinder, in feisty mood. Editors at G. Henle Verlag respond to being called "morons." ... Another bracing new score by Andrew Norman, one of the most gifted of younger American composers: The Companion Guide to Rome, for string trio.... Tomorrow night at the Austrian Cultural Forum in NYC, Taka Kigawa digs into the archives of the Second Viennese School.... Worth exploring: the work of composer, vocalist, and dancer Gabrielle Herbst. She appears on Nov. 17 at Roulette.