Opera
Met Opera Live's Macbeth: Netrebko's singing stirred almost as much as her décolletage
This season of live Met relays got off to a most impressive start, with an electrifying account of Verdi’s tenth…
Wear a veil if you like – but don’t treat women like that
What sort of clothing do you wear when you go to the opera? I assume some of you do go…
Maya Plisetskaya and Rodion Shchedrin: ‘The KGB put a microphone in our marriage bed'
Ismene Brown talks to the Russian super-couple Maya Plisetskaya and Rodion Shchedrin about ballet, opera and the KGB
Spectator letters: St Augustine and Louise Mensch, war votes and flannel
Faith and flexibility Sir: What a contrast in your two articles on religion last week: one liberal atheist parent (Claire…
ENO’s The Girl of the Golden West is irresistibly seductive
Puccini’s La fanciulla del West is, one suspects, one of those works that modern audiences struggle to keep a straight…
Royal Opera's Rigoletto: your disbelief may wobble but your excitement won't
One of the greatest tests of how an opera house is functioning is the quality of its revivals. Both the…
Robo-Tell hits Welsh National Opera
Is there a fundamental, insuperable problem with staging Rossini’s Guillaume Tell on a budget, without the resources to conjure up…
Winslow Hall shows you don’t need fancy sets to make opera enjoyable
Winslow Hall is a large and handsome country house in Buckinghamshire, built in 1700 by Sir Christopher Wren, which Tony…
Is Anna Nicole’s absurd life worth our while? Not as much as Otello’s
So how did London’s two big opera companies launch their new seasons last week? Not perhaps in the way you…
Michael Tanner: Why I prefer Donizetti to Strauss
Three operas this week, each of them named after its (anti-)heroine: one of the heroines (the most sympathetic) murders her…
The small rewards of small-scale opera
Neither OperaUpClose’s La traviata nor Finborough Theatre’s production of Boughton’s The Immortal Hour quite cut it
In defence of Puccini
During my opera-going lifetime the most sensational change in the repertoire has, of course, been the immense expansion of the…
Farewell, Speccie
So we are all going to have to pay for fatties to have stomach bands and bypasses, are we? It…
The rich have given up their freedom
The appointment of Sajid Javid as the new Secretary of State for Culture has been much criticised on the grounds…
Spectator letters: On wind turbines, Churchill's only exam success, and the red-trousered mayor of Bristol
When the wind blows Sir: Clare Oxford’s piece (‘Gone with the wind turbines’, 12 April) is both timely and sad.…
Leipzig and Dresden are both staging Elektra. Which city wins?
Yet more performances of Elektra, Richard Strauss’s setting of Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s ramped-up, neurosis-riddled 1903 reworking of Sophocles, are unlikely…
The ENO's Magic Flute ignores everything that makes Mozart's opera great
A new production of The Magic Flute is something to look forward to, if with apprehension. How many aspects of…
If 'Greek' is playing within 200 miles of where you live — watch it
This week chanced to give me a fascinating study in contrasts and comparisons: Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Greek at the Linbury Studio,…
Letters: On quitting Facebook, and putting down Nigel
Why we joined Sir: I was astonished by the assertion made by Wyn Grant (Letters, 21 September) that ‘the postwar…
Happy 80th birthday, Dame Janet Baker
Michael Kennedy salutes the mezzo-soprano Janet Baker,who celebrates her 80th birthday next week
Roger Scruton’s diary: Finding Scrutopia in the Czech Republic
Hay-making was easy this year, and over in good time for a holiday. I am opposed to holidays, having worked…
When Glyndebourne is the most perfect place on earth
Glyndebourne. There is no single quintessential example of English scenery, but this is one of the finest. The landscape is …
Letters: The Met Office answers Rupert Darwall, and a defence of Bolívar
Wild weather Sir: Weather and climate science is not an emotional or political issue — even though emotions and politics run…
Opera review: Longborough's tiny stage takes on the Ring - and wins
There are no two ways about it: Wagner’s Ring cycle, the biggest challenge that any opera company can face, has…
