On Opera

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

Less austerity, more pizazz

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