On Opera
Off with the fairies
Unsurprisingly, the most brilliant of all English music-theatre pieces are mostly overlooked
Poor old Carmen
This update of a classic from the Royal Opera House is a reminder of why messing with great pieces is so risky
The grand tour
Sex and the cities
Operettas for the apocalypse
As we career merrily ever deeper into the end-times, what is the appropriate soundtrack for civilisational collapse?
High art or high camp?
Elektra, Royal Opera House
Goodnight Vienna
A new Austrian musical taps dark material to produce a brilliant, unsettling and darkly funny exploration of the Anschluss
The geopolitical prescience of Handel
On opera’s flirtation with current affairs
Divine trickery
Jephtha, Royal Opera House
Passionate subjectivity
La traviata, ENO, Coliseum
Missing the point
Why opera needs fictional dead women
Love in a remotely-controlled climate
If we outsource our decisions to
machines, we will be less capable
of navigating our own feelings
Joe Biden needs a Reagan moment
It is time not just for strong words but for serious demands
Dark rumblings at the RIBA
Secretive shenanigans concerning the future home of its drawings collection arouse concern about the wisdom of the governance of the RIBA
The emptiness of hype
A cultural legacy depends on far more than passing enthusiasm
In defence of British theological education
Critics should be more optimistic about the new generation of ordinands
The dangerous excesses of breaking boundaries
There is a double standard on trans people and violence
The war on noticing in modern Britain
How DEI initiatives and the worldview behind them dull people’s natural perceptiveness
Liz Truss was right but naive
She grasped the scale of Britain’s plight but misunderstood the nature of power
Postcards from before the war
It is no longer possible to reflect upon Israeli culture as if the “Question of Palestine” could be brushed aside
Where has all the money gone?
Even Booker Prize-winning novelists struggle to make a living from writing
The left-wing defence of free speech
A recent book mounts a rare and powerful, if partly flawed, case for free expression from the Left
