For more than 200 years, Gioachino Rossini’s “The Barber of Seville” and Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro” have been among the best-known operas in the world, with comical stories and lively music ...

Few people can easily define it but nearly everyone knows it when they hear it. Speak-singing, the murky marriage of spoken lyrics and sung melodies, can be heard in everything from 17th century opera ...