Royal opera house

ENO’s Peter Grimes shows a major international company operating at full artistic power

30 September 2023 9:00 am

In David Alden’s production of Peter Grimes, the mob assembles before the music has even started – silhouetted at the…

One long moan of woe: Crystal Pite's Light of Passage, at the Royal Opera, reviewed

29 October 2022 9:00 am

I was moved and shaken by Crystal Pite’s Flight Pattern when I first saw it in 2017. In richly visualised…

Echoes of John Lewis: Piazza at Royal Opera House reviewed

22 October 2022 9:00 am

The Piazza is not a piazza – a realisation which is always irritating – but a restaurant in the eaves…

A solid evening’s entertainment: Rambert's Peaky Blinders ballet reviewed

22 October 2022 9:00 am

Being of a squeamish sensibility and prejudiced by a low opinion of recent BBC drama, I can claim only a…

More depravity, please: Salome, at the Royal Opera House, reviewed

24 September 2022 9:00 am

The first night of the new season at Covent Garden was cancelled when the solemn news came through. The second…

I suspect this was a rush job: Like Water for Chocolate reviewed

11 June 2022 9:00 am

How much weight of plot can dance carry? Balanchine famously insisted that there are no mothers-in-law in ballet, and masters…

Too affectionate, not enough cruelty: Don Pasquale, at the Royal Opera House, reviewed

14 May 2022 9:00 am

There are many things to enjoy in the Royal Opera’s revival of Donizetti’s Don Pasquale, but perhaps the most surprising…

Why I booed Birtwistle

7 May 2022 9:00 am

Keith Burstein recalls a key moment in the battle for emancipation from the ivory tower of atonalism

Why is dance so butch these days?

2 April 2022 9:00 am

For an art form that once boldly set out to question conventional divisions of gender, ballet now seems to be…

Old-school excess, star power and spectacle: Royal Opera's Tosca reviewed

19 February 2022 9:00 am

London felt like its old self on Friday night. Possibly it was just me; when you visit the capital once…

Turns Handel into a Netflix thriller: Royal Opera's Theodora reviewed

12 February 2022 9:00 am

The Royal Opera has come over all baroque. In the Linbury Theatre, they’re hosting Irish National Opera’s production of Vivaldi’s…

A booster shot of sunlight: Unsuk Chin's new violin concerto reviewed

15 January 2022 9:00 am

Sir Simon Rattle and the London Symphony Orchestra began the year with a world première. Unsuk Chin’s Second Violin Concerto…

This is how G&S should be staged: ENO's HMS Pinafore reviewed

6 November 2021 9:00 am

Until 1881, HMS Pinafore was the second-longest-running show in West End history. Within a year of its première it had…

Swaggerific display of pumping chests and crotch-grabbing struts: NYDC's Speak Volumes reviewed

31 July 2021 9:00 am

Last week I attended a dance performance in person for the first time since March last year. If you’d asked…

The finest Falstaff you’ll see this summer

10 July 2021 9:00 am

Comedy’s a funny thing. No, seriously, the business of making people laugh is as fragile, as mercurial as cryptocurrency —…

The promoter the critics love to hate: an interview with Raymond Gubbay

19 June 2021 9:00 am

Richard Bratby talks to one of Britain’s most successful impresarios about his promoter’s nose, Arts Council spinelessness and ENO madness

Hit every auditory G-spot simultaneously: CBSO/Hough/Gardner concert reviewed

29 May 2021 9:00 am

Rejoice: live music is back. Or at least, live music with a live audience, which, as Sir Simon Rattle admitted,…

Sensual and silky: the Royal Ballet returns to Covent Garden

27 June 2020 9:00 am

Wayne McGregor’s Morgen! and Frederick Ashton’s Dance of the Blessed Spirits are the first pieces of live dance — streamed…

After weeks of silence, Royal Opera reopened with a whimper

20 June 2020 9:00 am

It was the fourth time, or maybe the fifth, that I found myself reaching for the tissues that I began…

Antonio Pappano on diversity, a new Ring cycle and defending Verdi from dodgy directors

29 February 2020 9:00 am

After a record 18 years – and counting – as music director, Antonio Pappano talks to Norman Lebrecht about life after Covent Garden and how opera is beyond younger audiences

The audience were in tears: Christian Gerhaher/Gerold Huber at the Wigmore Hall reviewed

24 January 2020 10:00 pm

‘Popular’ classical music is a relative term. Show me someone who thinks Beethoven is surefire box office, and I’ll show……

Daffy charm and diabolo tricks: Bolshoi’s The Bright Stream reviewed

17 August 2019 9:00 am

The Bright Stream is a ballet about a collective farm. Forget everything you know about collectivism — the failed harvests,…

Silly but stellar: Bolshoi Ballet’s Spartacus reviewed

10 August 2019 9:00 am

It’s togas-a-go-go as the Bolshoi bring Yuri Grigorovich’s 1956 ballet Spartacus to the Royal Opera House. Oh dear, I did…

Clare Presland as Susanna in Il segreto di Susanna at Opera Holland Park Image: © Ali Wright

It’s not fair – I liked Il segreto di Susanna before it was cool: OHP’s double bill reviewed

3 August 2019 9:00 am

Should a secret pleasure ever be shared? Spoiler alert: Susanna’s secret, unknown to her husband Gil, is that she smokes.…

Miraculous: Amanda Majeski as Katya Kabanova in Richard Jones’s Royal Opera production

One of the greatest operatic experiences of my life: Royal Opera’s Katya Kabanova reviewed

9 February 2019 9:00 am

Janacek’s upsetting opera Katya Kabanova, which hasn’t been seen in the UK for some time, turned up in two different…