While belly-laughs are not frequent, there’s terrific fun to be had in this massive soap-opera-style family melodrama

Why on earth would we want to see the same tawdry old stories endlessly re-enacted?

The Russians assume we use Opera to project state power, I assure them that the government hate the arts

A large proportion of the English drive themselves mad with a baroque cocktail of fury, snobbery and self-hatred over Gilbert and Sullivan

Robert Thicknesse on the woes of modern, British opera

The V&A reckons Alice in Wonderland is a self-help manual in the sex-war rather than the daydreams of an old Oxford perv

Robert Thicknesse ruminates on The Life and Death of Alexander Litvinenko

Robert Thicknesse on Rossini’s extraordinary de-cluttering of the musical atmosphere

Robert Thicknesse on how the idea that foreign poetry was better than local soon became established dogma

Robert Thicknesse reveals how in searching for meaning, opera adaptations are becoming more obscure