Opera
I don’t care what you wear. I care what you believe
What sort of clothing do you wear when you go to the opera? I assume some of you do go…
Surviving the Soviets
Ismene Brown talks to the Russian super-couple Maya Plisetskaya and Rodion Shchedrin about ballet, opera and the KGB
Letters
Faith and flexibility Sir: What a contrast in your two articles on religion last week: one liberal atheist parent (Claire…
Golden hearted
Puccini’s La fanciulla del West is, one suspects, one of those works that modern audiences struggle to keep a straight…
Revival MOT
One of the greatest tests of how an opera house is functioning is the quality of its revivals. Both the…
Robo-Tell
Is there a fundamental, insuperable problem with staging Rossini’s Guillaume Tell on a budget, without the resources to conjure up…
Long life
Winslow Hall is a large and handsome country house in Buckinghamshire, built in 1700 by Sir Christopher Wren, which Tony…
Douchebags and dartboards
So how did London’s two big opera companies launch their new seasons last week? Not perhaps in the way you…
Femmes fatales
Three operas this week, each of them named after its (anti-)heroine: one of the heroines (the most sympathetic) murders her…
Small is not beautiful
Neither OperaUpClose’s La traviata nor Finborough Theatre’s production of Boughton’s The Immortal Hour quite cut it
Tainted love
During my opera-going lifetime the most sensational change in the repertoire has, of course, been the immense expansion of the…
Farewell notebook
So we are all going to have to pay for fatties to have stomach bands and bypasses, are we? It…
Long life
The appointment of Sajid Javid as the new Secretary of State for Culture has been much criticised on the grounds…
Letters
When the wind blows Sir: Clare Oxford’s piece (‘Gone with the wind turbines’, 12 April) is both timely and sad.…
German double
Yet more performances of Elektra, Richard Strauss’s setting of Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s ramped-up, neurosis-riddled 1903 reworking of Sophocles, are unlikely…
Flawed Flute
A new production of The Magic Flute is something to look forward to, if with apprehension. How many aspects of…
Disturbed by Britten
This week chanced to give me a fascinating study in contrasts and comparisons: Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Greek at the Linbury Studio,…
Letters
Why we joined Sir: I was astonished by the assertion made by Wyn Grant (Letters, 21 September) that ‘the postwar…
‘I adore the stage’
Michael Kennedy salutes the mezzo-soprano Janet Baker,who celebrates her 80th birthday next week
Diary
Hay-making was easy this year, and over in good time for a holiday. I am opposed to holidays, having worked…
Bottled opera
Glyndebourne. There is no single quintessential example of English scenery, but this is one of the finest. The landscape is …
Letters
Wild weather Sir: Weather and climate science is not an emotional or political issue — even though emotions and politics run…
Taking up the challenge
There are no two ways about it: Wagner’s Ring cycle, the biggest challenge that any opera company can face, has…
