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Richard BratbyThe Spectator |
If the Royal Opera’s new Parsifal had ended after Act One, you’d be reading right now that it was one of the finest British Wagner productions of...
Evgeny Titov has landed at the Royal Opera, and he has good news for Britain’s beleaguered opera scene. ‘It’s the best place to work,’ he...
These are strange days in the recording industry. Heaven alone knows why Platoon – an Apple sub-conglomerate with all the charm of the Borg – has...
No critic sets out to be a reactionary, even though it’s much easier that way. There’s no real satisfaction in rejecting novelty on sight; no joy...
The long days wane, summer fades and sure enough, the big international guest orchestras land at the BBC Proms. A rare catch this year was the Proms...
Phrenology, eh? It’s cobblers, plainly, but Robert Schumann didn’t know that and his biographer Martin Geck tells how in 1846, near Dresden, he...
Those lights! Thinking back on The Galloping Cure, Missy Mazzoli’s new opera for the Edinburgh International Festival, that’s what lingers:...
The Viennese violinist Arnold Rosé (1863-1946) held a musical civilisation together. Brother-in-law of Mahler, friend to Brahms and a legendary...
Hull is a city of many quirks, but I didn’t expect a mermaid. Seriously: an actual mermaid, mounted in a case on the top floor of the Maritime...
Those lights! Thinking back on The Galloping Cure, Missy Mazzoli’s new opera for the Edinburgh International Festival, that’s what lingers:...
‘Cheltenham Symphonies’, they used to call them – a catch-all term for the kind of large-scale, traditionally inclined postwar works that found...
Pity Carl Maria von Weber. On the morning of 5 June 1826 a servant knocked on the door of his bedroom in Great Portland Street, and heard no response....
‘Cheltenham Symphonies’, they used to call them – a catch-all term for the kind of large-scale, traditionally inclined postwar works that found...
Wasn’t it Philomena Cunk who first observed that Shakespeare’s greatest work is Game of Thrones? She had a point. When I told friends that the...
The Three Choirs Festival always feels so nourishing, so eternally English, that you sometimes forget how much history has been made there. It was in...
Ah, so that’s where the kangaroo comes in! Garsington Opera produces a souvenir mug each summer decorated with cartoons of that year’s operas. Buy...
If you’re interested in how words work with music, the collected lyrics of Stephen Sondheim are an investment you’ll never regret. But Sondheim...
There’s a special art in making something difficult appear effortless, and the string trio is a supreme test. It’s the smallest viable unit for...
If you’re interested in how words work with music, the collected lyrics of Stephen Sondheim are an investment you’ll never regret. But Sondheim...
Vincenzo Bellini realised early on that as titles go, Le teste rotonde ed i cavalieri (The Roundheads and the Cavaliers) doesn’t exactly trip off...
Say what you like about Monteverdi, but he knew how to get his audience on side. ‘I greet you, heroes, princes,’ declares the personification of...
It’s spring in Vienna; well, OK, it’s early summer but it’s a grey day when Mozart doesn’t make you feel younger and I reckon this new release...
It’s impossible to say what Rossini would have made of Glyndebourne’s production of Il turco in Italia, but you can bet on one thing – he’d...
Nature smiled on the opening week of Opera Holland Park’s new season. There’s no better advertisement for semi-outdoor opera than an unseasonal...
English National Opera’s first production created in Manchester is Angel’s Bone, a one-act opera by Du Yun and the librettist Royce Vavrek. It was...
English National Opera’s first production created in Manchester is Angel’s Bone, a one-act opera by Du Yun and the librettist Royce Vavrek. It was...
English National Opera’s first production created in Manchester is Angel’s Bone, a one-act opera by Du Yun and the librettist Royce Vavrek. It was...
This year’s Jette Parker Artists showcase is a triple bill of modern-ish operas; a cleverly assembled trittico of one-acters, linked by a theme of...
This year’s Jette Parker Artists showcase is a triple bill of modern-ish operas; a cleverly assembled trittico of one-acters, linked by a theme of...
‘Is that Haydn or Mozart? One can’t always be sure,’ remarks Kenneth Clark in the 18th-century episode of Civilisation, and there’s the...
On the first night of Welsh National Opera’s new Flying Dutchman, the company’s co-directors walked on stage to salute their departing music...
Anyone for a spot of acoustic science? Apparently the distinctive colour of a musical note is concentrated almost wholly in the attack: the first...
Never let it be said that The Spectator fails to follow up an arts story. Long-term readers will recall that in the edition of 6 March 1711 Joseph...
Covent Garden’s new Ring cycle has reached Siegfried, and once again, you can only marvel at Wagner’s Shakespeare-like ability to anticipate...
For some record collectors, the fun lies in comparing recordings of standard repertoire. For others, it’s more about exploring – discovering works...
Covent Garden’s new Ring cycle has reached Siegfried, and once again, you can only marvel at Wagner’s Shakespeare-like ability to anticipate...
Is Sir Andras Schiff becoming the Ken Dodd of the piano? In his later years, you’ll recall, the Yorick of Knotty Ash took to delivering marathon...
By the end of Siegfried, the third opera in Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, the king of the gods is in freefall. In the first opera, Das...
By the end of Siegfried, the third opera in Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, the king of the gods is in freefall. In the first opera, Das...
You think you know a musical genre; then a new recording comes along and pulls something unexpected out of the bag. Walter Willson Cobbett (1847-1937)...
Some people like art to have a message. So here’s one, delivered by Katsushika Hokusai near the end of Dai Fujikura and Harry Ross’s new opera The...
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