Fidelio
I pounded my car horn like a Neapolitan cabbie: ENO's drive-in Bohème reviewed
The email from English National Opera was blunt: ‘Your arrival time is 18.25. If you arrive outside your allocated time…
Antonio Pappano on diversity, a new Ring cycle and defending Verdi from dodgy directors
After a record 18 years – and counting – as music director, Antonio Pappano talks to Norman Lebrecht about life after Covent Garden and how opera is beyond younger audiences
In defence of Puccini
During my opera-going lifetime the most sensational change in the repertoire has, of course, been the immense expansion of the…
Freedom for my chickens! All it took was a man with a gun
If I haven’t mentioned my poultry for a while, it’s because the subject has been too depressing. I had been…
The state of opera today (it's not good)
I’ve been hoping that in this, the last of my weekly columns on opera, I would be able to strike…
A sensational week for opera: sensationally good and sensationally bad
It’s been a sensational week for opera in London, with a sensationally good performance of Strauss’s Elektra at the Royal…
