Typical of a major conductor in our jet set age, Marin Alsop, who appears with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center on Wednesday, has bases of operation located in a variety of far flung cities. First is Baltimore, where in September she begins her second year as the music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. With her 2005 appointment to the post she became the first female leader of a...

Picture the multitude of soldiers, horses and weapons that populated the recent blockbuster film “Troy.” Add in myriad satyrs, nymphs and fauns plus a score of ego-driven opera singers. Then squeeze them all onto a stage for four hours and you’ll begin to grasp the job of Francesca Zambello, who directed “Les Troyens” last year at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. Zambello is an opera director. In other...