John Amis online

New Glyndebourne Opera August 10 The premiere at Glyndebourne of a new, commissioned opera by Peter Eötvöșa, a Hungarian composer previously...

No.61, June 13 – 29 began with a stinker and ended with a bang. Things here are changing; some of the almost derelict buildings adjacent to ...

Neither Stravinsky, Hogarth nor W.H Auden were best served by the new production at Covent Garden of The Rake’s Progress , first night of fi...

Leonard Bernstein was the all-American Mr. Music. He adored applause, he courted it, he got it and he deserved it. On form he was the top co...

Grange Park Opera Triumphs Grange Park Opera in Hampshire near Basingstoke has come of age in the current season with its production of Pu...

Don Carlos at Covent Garden 12.10.58 From ’The Scotsman’ (n.b.date) “To mark the centenary of the opening of the present Royal Opera Hou...

"Too many notes", the Emperor famously rebuked Mozart; and maybe an Emperor could have said "too many words" after the 1...

Eugene Onegin is notably superior to Tchaikovsky's other half dozen odd operas. Why? Probably because it was nearer to his private life ...

THE REST IS NOISE Listening to the Twentieth Century Alex Ross Pp 624 Fourth Estate £20 This book is well worth the money – the best survey ...

Did you know that Darcey Bussell could speak lines? Or that Kathleen Jenkins could dance? Pop along to your local arena then, and find out f...

March 30 in the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, had the first performance of Edward Harper’s re-orchestration of Alan Rawsthorne’s cantata Kub...

Sir Colin Davis has been celebrating his 80th birthday in style, conducting Berlioz with the French National Orchestra, Gerontius in Boston...

Which opera by Richard Strauss has a text by Hoffmannsthal, a big soprano monologue to end act one, an important transvestite role and waltz...

Enter a scruffy maestro, Nigel Kennedy himself, him wiv the bovver left boots, tassels a-dangling. He carries his violin in the left hand, ...

It was probably Donizetti's librettist who made Lord Henry Ashton the villain who wrongs Lucia di Lammermoor, instead of Walter Scott...

WHY do we call afternoon shows matinees ? Probably too late to change it now; but wouldn't apres-midiens be more accurate? Anyway I went...

Political correctness forced Robertsons to remove from their jams the charming gollywog logo. But The Mikado , the most successful of all th...

Sandor Vegh in Cornwall: the Hungarian Virtuoso Violinist and the founding of the International Musicians Seminar Prussia Cove. By Hilary Tu...

An evening with this title was given on January 22. It was a curate's egg affair. Good were the filmed tributes from Zubin Menta the con...

When Britten announced that he was going to write an all-male opera we thought he was barking mad (just as we did when he said he was writin...