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
Wagner, restless provocateur
Wagner’s sexual ambiguity spoke to Oscar Wilde, Aubrey Beardsley and Thomas Mann, says Norman Lebrecht
Met with disappointment: a quiet season for postmodern New York
Manhattan’s cultural landscape faces more tough times ahead with the cancellation of the Met’s 2020/2021 season
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
The welcome sound of silence
For three days I listened to nothing but birdsong, marvelling at the variety and the volume
Gentleman of Médoc
This wine is ready to drink but can readily be put down to hibernate for another half decade before being savoured by the Shepherd Market salonnières
Rule of silence
Good laws can’t be made if we don’t talk about them, and bad laws can’t be repealed in silence
Stonewall finally accept debate
Middle Temple made history with its LGBTQ+ forum
Digging a new scene
Thomas Woodham-Smith discovers the joys of gardenalia
The Austrian solution
Mandating vaccination by criminal sanction may sound draconian, but then again Austria has historic form for this sort of thing
The same old misogyny
A feminist student society has taken legal action against the Bristol Student Union for sanctioning their women-only spaces
Hermione Simper
Although Hermione rarely names names or dishes dirt with quite the enthusiasm that her mother did, then she too has her tales to tell
The Crimean War
Professor Jeremy Black on how Britain, France and the Ottoman Empire found themselves fighting together in the Crimea
We’re us, not the US
Other than US media wages, why do BBC journalists want Britain to be America?
Woke: the oldest profession
The modern hegemony of the “liberal professions” has become one of the principal challenges to liberal democracy
Problems with the universities, number 1241: ‘The Senior Management Group’
Debt-ridden universities are demonstrating consistently poor prioritisation in decision-making