By Josie Cox LONDON (Reuters) - Even with one of the world's most athletic opera singers at her side and plenty of practice, American mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato reckons the latest London production of Gioachino Rossini's "La Donna Del Lago" is the challenge of a lifetime. DiDonato and Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Florez told Reuters at the Royal Opera House production's opening on Friday night that performing their technically demanding roles in the John Fulljames interpretation is almost like an elite sport. ...

By Harriet McLeod CHARLESTON, South Carolina (Reuters) - "American Idol" winner Candice Glover, whose powerful voice clinched the title of the popular TV singing show, comes from a sea island culture made up of descendants of West African slaves. "I speak another language," she said during the Fox TV show. "It's called Geechee." Some 14.2 million TV viewers tuned in to watch Glover beat Kree Harrison to win the season 12 "American Idol" crown on Thursday. Glover, 23, is a native of rural St. Helena Island in the coastal South Carolina Lowcountry. ...

LONDON (Reuters) - British singer George Michael has received medical treatment after a car crash on Thursday, his publicist said. The 49-year-old former Wham! frontman was being treated for "minor cuts and bruises" after the accident, Michael's spokeswoman said. "George Michael was a passenger in a vehicle involved in a traffic accident yesterday evening, no third party was involved," a spokeswoman said on Friday. "He is being treated for superficial cuts and bruises but is fine." British media reported that the accident occurred just outside London on a motorway during rush hour. ...

By Mia Shanley STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Bare-chested Irish drummers, a Ukrainian giant and a much-discussed lesbian kiss will be on display at this Saturday's Eurovision final in Sweden which - love it or hate it - promises plenty of pop, kitsch and barefoot ballads. Some 26 countries will compete for the jewel in the crown of European pop in the homeland of former Swedish supergroup ABBA, one of Eurovision's most successful winners. ...

By Jeremy Gaunt LONDON (Reuters) - If Kat Edmonson ever becomes a household name, she can put it down not just to her talent as a jazz singer, but to some decidedly modern financing as well. The 29-year-old Texan, an old-school chanteuse with a contemporary lilt, has funded production of her second album via a community workshop and through crowd-sourcing, essentially getting the people who like her to pay for it. The album, "Way Down Low", has now been picked up by Sony which is "launching" the singer outside the United States as an up-and-comer in a more traditional manner. ...

By Patricia Reaney (Reuters) - Candice Glover, a soul singer from rural South Carolina, was named "American Idol" on Thursday, becoming the first female singer to win the television singing competition since 2007. Glover, 23, defeated country singer Kree Harrison in the popular vote with her powerful voice in what judges deemed a close contest to take the title on season 12 of the Fox network show. "You are officially our American idol," host Ryan Seacrest said as the crowd of more than 7,000 at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles cheered. ...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Singer Bob Dylan was made an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, joining the ranks of leading writers, composers and artists in the prestigious 115-year-old group. Henry Cobb, the president of the academy, said honorary members are people of great distinction in the creative arts. ...

LONDON (Reuters) - British boy band One Direction, one of the pop industry's biggest acts of the last 18 months, are working on an "edgy" third album and will start a world tour next year. The five singers told a press conference in London that their new album, which the music press speculated would share the same name as their upcoming "Where We Are" 2014 tour, will depart from the teen pop that has had young girls screaming around the world since they first emerged from a talent show. ...

By Paul Casciato LONDON (Reuters) - An invitation from the White House robbed Emeli Sande on Thursday of the chance to celebrate the latest mark of her success in an unstoppable rise to the front ranks of British female singers. The Scottish singer-songwriter's "Next To Me" single won both the best song and most performed work categories at Britain's 58th Ivor Novello awards for songwriting, putting her on a par with some of Britain's biggest music names. ...

BOSTON (Reuters) - The Boston Symphony Orchestra has hired Latvian conductor Andris Nelsons to succeed James Levine, an iconic American conductor known for his wild hair and dramatic manner, who left in 2011 due to health problems, it said on Thursday. Nelsons will be the leading U.S. symphony's youngest conductor in more than a century when he begins the 2013-14 season as "music director designate." He will assume the full title of music director for the 2014-15 season. ...

By Piya Sinha-Roy LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Country group Lady Antebellum scored its third No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 album chart on Wednesday, staving off competition from Jay-Z's soundtrack for "The Great Gatsby" film. "Golden," the fourth studio album from the Nashville trio, sold more than 167,000 copies in its first week, according to figures from Nielsen SoundScan, securing the top position on the weekly Billboard chart, which measures album sales across both digital and physical formats. ...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Rapper Dr. Dre and music mogul Jimmy Iovine have donated $70 million to establish an entrepreneurial undergraduate program at the University of Southern California, the Los Angeles school said on Wednesday. The gift will create a new degree pulling faculty members from the university's business, fine arts, music and engineering departments. The Jimmy Iovine and Andre Young Academy for Arts, Technology and the Business of Innovation will begin in the fall of 2014 and enroll a first class of 25 students, USC said. Dr. ...

By Patricia Reaney (Reuters) - Soul singer Candice Glover vied with country crooner Kree Harrison on Wednesday in an all-female finale of "American Idol" to become the first woman to win the TV singing competition since 2007. In a finale that judge Randy Jackson described as "so close," Glover, the 23-year-old former travel agent from St. Helena, South Carolina, brought the judges and the audience to their feet after belting out Tom Jones' "I Who Have Nothing." "You are such a powerhouse singer," judge Keith Urban said. "The song is like a planet exploding. ...

By Michael Roddy DRESDEN, Germany (Reuters) - A concert in a car factory using parts of a luxury sedan as percussion instruments is one thing, but a Volkswagen suspended above the New York Philharmonic creates another level of musical drama entirely. The NYPO under its first native New York music director, Alan Gilbert, showed during two concerts this week at the Dresden Music Festival in central Germany why the 46-year-old conductor has a reputation for brushing off the cobwebs at one of America's most distinguished orchestras. ...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Pop singer Christina Aguilera is in discussions to return as a judge on NBC television singing competition "The Voice" next season, sources with knowledge of the talks said on Tuesday. Aguilera, 32, went on hiatus from the program this season to promote her latest album, "Lotus," with a concert tour. The singer had been a judge on the first three seasons of the program, which debuted in 2011. ...

By Nidal al-Mughrabi GAZA (Reuters) - The fractious factions in the Gaza Strip and across the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories have found one voice to unite behind - a 22-year-old youth singing songs about a lost homeland on the Middle East's version of 'American Idol'. Gaza native Mohammed Assaf has become the first Palestinian to qualify for 'Arab Idol', a TV talent show staged in Beirut, in which singers perform for judges and voting viewers. ...

LONDON (Reuters) - "Avatar" director James Cameron and Russian conductor Valery Gergiev will beam the world's first live 3D ballet broadcast to 50 countries from Russia's Mariinsky theatre in June. Cinema audiences across Europe, the United States, South America, Asia, Australia and elsewhere will be able to watch Ekaterina Kondaurova dance the role of Odette/Odile in Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake" at the 19th century opera house on June 6, production company Omniverse Vision said in a statement. ...

By Brent Lang LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - The Grammy Awards will return to the Staples Center in Los Angeles next January, the Recording Academy and CBS announced Monday. The annual music honors will be broadcast on Sunday, January 26, 2014, between 8:00 to 11:30 PM. It will air live on CBS for East Coast viewers and will be tape delayed on the West Coast. The network and academy also announced broadcast dates for the 2015 edition. That iteration of "Music's Biggest Night" will air on Sunday, February 8, 2015. Ratings for the show fell from 39 million viewers to 28 million this year. ...

By Jeff Sneider LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Rocket Pictures' Elton John biopic "Rocketman" will be taking off at Cannes, with Good Universe launching the international sales effort at the upcoming Cannes Film Market. Michael Gracey is directing from a script by Oscar nominee Lee Hall ("Billy Elliot"). Steve Hamilton Shaw and David Furnish ("Gnomeo and Juliet") will produce, while Sir Elton John will executive produce. ...

(Reuters) - Soul singer Aretha Franklin has pulled out of two upcoming performances because of health issues, the two concert venues said on Monday. Franklin, 71, canceled a May 20 concert with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and a May 26 solo performance at the Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut. "It was canceled for medical reasons," Foxwoods spokeswoman Dale Wolbrink said, declining to say what health issues caused the "Queen of Soul" to pull out of the May 26 show. ...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Veteran "American Idol" judge Randy Jackson said on Thursday he was leaving the Fox TV singing contest to focus on his other business ventures. Jackson, who has been a judge on the show since its start in 2002, made the announcement amid falling ratings and rampant rumors about the future makeup of the celebrity panel. "Yo! Yo! Yo! To put all of the speculation to the rest, after 12 years of judging on American Idol I have decided it is time to leave after this season," Jackson told entertainment news outlet E! News. ...

By Ross Kerber CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (Reuters) - South Korean rapper Psy said he "partied hard" when his dance number drew its first 10 million views on YouTube last summer. Little did he know "Gangnam Style" would become the most-viewed video in the online service's history, with a global following and nearly 1.6 billion views as of Thursday. ...

BERLIN (Reuters) - Teenage pop star Justin Bieber appears to have given up on his pet monkey which was seized by German customs officials in March, according to the shelter looking after "Mally". The 19-year-old singer has until Friday to hand in the necessary paperwork to retrieve his capuchin monkey, which was seized at Munich airport during a concert tour. "Bieber's lawyers have indicated they would like to leave the monkey," said Judith Brettmeister, spokeswoman for the shelter caring for Mally. ...

By Marty Graham VISTA, California (Reuters) - Heavy metal singer Tim Lambesis, the frontman for Christian rock band As I Lay Dying, pleaded not guilty on Thursday to a charge of soliciting the murder of his estranged wife. North San Diego County Superior Court Judge Martin Staven set bail for Lambesis at $3 million. He ordered Lambesis to surrender his passport, stay away from his wife Meggan and their three children and remain in San Diego county except to meet with his attorney. If convicted, Lambesis faces up to nine years in prison. ...

By Jill Serjeant LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Viewers are gearing up to crown the first female winner of "American Idol" in six years, but the biggest drama at the once-dominant Fox TV singing contest is taking place backstage over which of the celebrity judges will be voted off. Audiences for what was the most-watched TV show in the United States for eight years have slumped to new lows in the current 12th season, despite the addition of singers Mariah Carey, Nicki Minaj and Keith Urban to the judging panel. ...

By Tim Kenneally LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Justin Bieber is once again airing his thoughts on history-making figures. With about as much success as he did last time. "Boyfriend" singer Bieber, who caught heat last month when he wondered whether Anne Frank would have been a fan of his, has now turned his gaze toward anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela. Bieber's deep thoughts on Mandela? He's "the man. ...