The Critics

Eastern promise

Three worthy TV shows now streaming that allow you to zip around the world with a few clicks

Sack the lot at rotten Radio 3

BBC Radio 3 is drowning in a puddle of self-willed mediocrity

Don’t shoot the pianists, protect them

Conductors should leave accompanying to the collaborative pianists

Verdi shines, despite everything

A gloomy production of a glittering opera

Sharp dressed man

Nick Cave sounds as good as ever

A silent crook

The recent restoration of Erich von Stroheim’s Foolish Wives shows that the original movie is astonishingly modern

The case of the legless duchess

A tale that proves the media and the public still thrill to an art theft

An American’s excellent essays

A set of fine programmes on the American bohemians who brought to life a great city on the cusp of significant change

Flatpack classic

Summer theatre where anything, including a return to rehearsal-room Brechtian, goes

Music to die for

The elegant narrative solution of suicide has had no greater cheerleader than opera