On Opera
Shock of the new
People are terrified of modernity’s great gift: the sudden freedom to make appalling noise, says Robert Thicknesse
Cheer leaders
Opera unswervingly believes in the potential for a divine spark in humans, says Robert Thicknesse
Do not go gently
Opera has treated the subject of cancelling the pleasures of others in some depth
How about some vistas of beauty?
Covent Garden’s first post-lockdown offering is in a long, grim tradition
Sex tips from Semele
Opera was the tinder of Renaissance Venice, says Robert Thicknesse
A grim chorus of philistines
Rishi’s £1.57 Billion handout to the arts sector is the last good news it’ll ever hear, says Robert Thicknesse
To the streets, via the Crush Bar
Robert Thicknesse on Opera
An opera critic in lockdown
The critic, like a used-up traveller in ladies’ corsetry in a Fifties film, is enjoying a happy furlough
Wildest dreamland
It’s the perfect medium for the End Times, unequalled in its devotion to doom
Men beware women
How we underestimate the women in Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte
Could there be a Reform revolution?
Reform’s Welsh Conference brimmed with optimism — but can that be translated into success?
The EU is leaving Britain behind on immigration
The continent is waking up to the need for solutions, and Britain must wake up as well
Israel, the ICJ and the plausibility of genocide
Commentators are misunderstanding the provisional measures of the International Court of Justice
The shame of the Oxford Union
A debate on Israel and Palestine was a disgrace
People of Colour television
How to unpick the progressive contradictions of colour-blind casting
How to end the free speech crisis
The right must plan to demolish the four pillars of Britain’s stifling anti-speech laws
Not much COP
Holding the climate summit in Baku displays brazen hypocrisy
Kim Leadbeater’s “safeguards” won’t keep people safe
The proposed legal hurdles are effectively useless
Progressive realism
Can Labour’s new foreign policy doctrine work in our troubled world?
Only abortion is like abortion
Don’t tack on abortion to create an impression of progressive goodness
When America ignored a slaughter
Whatever America’s flaws, its absence from the global stage leaves a space quickly filled by far more malevolent actors
