On Opera

Bedlam bingo

Sex, death, sado-masochism and blasphemy in a heady cocktail

Loony tunes

Opera begs leave to celebrate lunacy in a different way

Lucia di Lammermoor, Royal Opera House

It’s an amazing paradox that something as tawdry as opera can produce such a pure expression of what it is to be human

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