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
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
A belly full of agitpropera
Opera really doesn’t need the help of activist directors when it comes to politics — it’s all there already
Schlock of the new
Those in charge are in thrall to vain provocateur directors
Death of a polymath
The great British opera director Jonathan Miller has died aged 85. Here is one of his last interviews
Who’d want to be a critic?
Criticism has died at London’s newspaper