Arts
Double tragedy
To examine an ancient text requires an understanding of the ancient imagination. The Oresteia is set in a primitive world…
Bursting the bubble
The conventional history of modern art was written on the busy Paris-New York axis, as if nowhere else existed. For…
High and mighty
‘Ain’t about what’s waiting on the other side,’ sang Miley Cyrus. ‘It’s the climb.’ She’s not usually a musician to…
Fighting talk
If there’s one thing scarcer than hen’s teeth in serious choreography nowadays, it’s a light heart. When was the last…
Socialist Cluedo
What a load of manipulative, hysterical tosh is An Inspector Calls. It wasn’t a work with which I was familiar…
Eastern airs
On Private Passions this week the writer Amitav Ghosh gave us a refreshingly different version of what has become a…
High and mighty
‘Ain’t about what’s waiting on the other side,’ sang Miley Cyrus. ‘It’s the climb.’ She’s not usually a musician to…
There will be blood
If you don’t want to spend hundreds of euros on a good seat, the best place to watch the Palio…
Fighting talk
If there’s one thing scarcer than hen’s teeth in serious choreography nowadays, it’s a light heart. When was the last…
Deadlier than the male
Last week a 17-year-old girl forced the Edexcel exam board to change its A-level music syllabus to include the work…
Deadlier than the male
Last week a 17-year-old girl forced the Edexcel exam board to change its A-level music syllabus to include the work…
All roads lead to Callas
Bellini belongs to that category of not-quite-great operatic composers whose works are also very difficult to perform adequately, and don’t…
All roads lead to Callas
Bellini belongs to that category of not-quite-great operatic composers whose works are also very difficult to perform adequately, and don’t…
Double tragedy
To examine an ancient text requires an understanding of the ancient imagination. The Oresteia is set in a primitive world…
Double tragedy
To examine an ancient text requires an understanding of the ancient imagination. The Oresteia is set in a primitive world…
Eastern airs
On Private Passions this week the writer Amitav Ghosh gave us a refreshingly different version of what has become a…
Eastern airs
On Private Passions this week the writer Amitav Ghosh gave us a refreshingly different version of what has become a…
Socialist Cluedo
What a load of manipulative, hysterical tosh is An Inspector Calls. It wasn’t a work with which I was familiar…
See no evil
Harry Mount once idolised the Kray twins. He’s since seen the error of his ways
Going for a song
This column does like a bargain. Indeed, it not only esteems and relishes a bargain, it has also worked long…
Lines of beauty
Marshall McLuhan got it at least half right. The medium may not always be the entire message, but it certainly…
Get me to an opera house
In anyone’s hands, Verdi’s Aida is not the easiest opera to raise up to greatness on the stage. How does…
Dual control
Legend is a biopic of the Kray twins starring Tom Hardy as Reggie and Tom Hardy as Ronnie, so it’s…
Nice work
You can’t play the part of Hamlet, only parts of Hamlet. And the bits Benedict Cumberbatch offers us are of…
Cock and bull
It’s hard to know whether the actor James Norton was being naive or disingenuous when he claimed in publicity interviews…
