Thomas Adès
Baffling and vile: ETO’s Manon Lescaut reviewed
In 1937, John Barbirolli took six pieces by Henry Purcell and arranged them for an orchestra of strings, horns and…
Richly layered and intricate: Royal Ballet's The Dante Project reviewed
Where does the artist end and their work begin? Like 2015’s Woolf Works, Wayne McGregor’s new ballet swirls creator and…
A lockdown masterpiece and the Jessica Rabbit of concertos: contemporary classical roundup
So it finally happened: I experienced my first vocal setting of the word ‘Covid’. An encounter that was, inevitably, more…
Couldn't the BBC have filled at least some of the seats? First night of the Proms reviewed
The Royal Albert Hall, as Douglas Adams never wrote, is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely,…
In his new piano concerto Thomas Ades’s inspiration has completely dried up
There’s nothing like a good piano concerto and, sad to relate, Thomas Adès’s long-awaited first proper attempt at the genre…
Does Gerald Barry hate music?
Blue Gadoo is one of those cats whose face looks like it’s been bashed flat with a wok. He lives…
Beauty and the beast
I was going to start with a little moan. About the shouty marketing, the digital diarrhoea, the sycophantic drivel, which,…
Whatever happened to Alice?
In 1987, the art of opera changed decisively. John Adams’s opera Nixon in China was so unlike the usual run…
Thomas Ades’s Polaris at Sadler’s Wells: the dance premiere of the year
This has been an extraordinarily exciting fortnight, on and off stage. Premieres in anything from ice-skating to classical ballet, charismatic…
Mixed results from the ENO and ROH in their seasonal away games
It’s been a spring tradition for several years now for English National Opera to present small-scale productions in various venues…
