Stefan Herheim

Philipp Fürhofer's handsome and often ingenious designs for the Royal Opera's overcomplicated new production of The Queen of Spades. Photo: ROH 2018 / Catherine Ashmore

Never quite pivots from thesis to drama: Royal Opera’s Queen of Spades reviewed

19 January 2019 9:00 am

We increasingly accept the collision between life and art. Whether we’re puzzling over the real identity of Elena Ferrante, choosing…

Christina Gansch as Mélisande in Pelléas et Mélisande at Glyndebourne Festival

Vexing reading of a perplexing opera: Glyndebourne’s Pelléas et Mélisande reviewed

7 July 2018 9:00 am

The femme fatale was invented in France. A giddy, greedy child in her first incarnation, as the antiheroine of Abbé…

I hope you spotted the epic 'existential struggle' in Les vêpres siciliennes — I didn't

26 October 2013 9:00 am

Verdi’s Les vêpres siciliennes is his least performed mature opera, even in its more familiar version as I vespri siciliani.…