Opera was the tinder of Renaissance Venice, says Robert Thicknesse

Rishi’s £1.57 Billion handout to the arts sector is the last good news it’ll ever hear, says Robert Thicknesse

Robert Thicknesse on Opera

The critic, like a used-up traveller in ladies’ corsetry in a Fifties film, is enjoying a happy furlough

It’s the perfect medium for the End Times, unequalled in its devotion to doom

How we underestimate the women in Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte

Grand opera was long thought quite dead but is suddenly rearing its shaggy head again

Opera really doesn’t need the help of activist directors when it comes to politics — it’s all there already

Those in charge are in thrall to vain provocateur directors

Every six months or so opera surfaces from its undersea lair, like a Bond villain, to enter public consciousness — generally when it’s been naughty.