Boris Godunov at Dutch National Opera, Louise at Festival d'Aix and Maria Stuarda at the Salzburg Festival and Teatro Real all reviewed in my Gramophone column: www.gramophone.co.uk/features/art...

Lotte de Beer’s Zauberflöte entrances a young Volksoper audience, My review for Opera Now: www.gramophone.co.uk/opera-now/re...

My fourth Tosca production within a fortnight... and it's the best of the lot: bachtrack.com/review-tosca...

“Flagging up” my @thetimes.com review of The Sicilian Vespers at the Royal Opera... 🇫🇷🔥 www.thetimes.com/culture/clas...

My fourth Tosca production within a fortnight... and it's the best of the lot: bachtrack.com/review-tosca...

Another evening, another Tosca…

Donning my skull mask this evening and heading for Vespers: a second revival for Stefan Herheim's staging of Verdi's Sicilian Vespers

One for Rossini fans today... Par🇮🇹le n°1352 4/6 pietroppeter.github.io/wordle-it/

Wordle 1,551 2/6 😁 ⬜⬜⬜🟩🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

A few thoughts on Alexei Ratmansky’s Pictures at an Exhibition which I caught at the weekend… canzonetta.substack.com/p/alexei-rat...

Hugely enjoying Dutch National Opera’s new Boris Godunov thanks to Mark Pullinger’s Gramophone review. What a fabulous resource is operavision.eu @larkingrumple.bsky.social #Opera operavision.eu/performance/...

It's five stars from me for @welshnatopera.bsky.social’s "try before you buy” Tosca, reviewed for @thetimes.com www.thetimes.com/culture/clas...

Cardiff-bound for another Tosca, Welsh National Opera’s season opener!

One of my favourite musical works inspired by Dante Alighieri (died OTD 1321) is Rachmaninov's Francesca da Rimini: bachtrack.com/feature-rach...

“There's no handbrake, no ‘lighter’ version of me.” Super interview with the fabulous young Austrian mezzo Patricia Nolz: bachtrack.com/interview-pa...

Nuns on the run! Defiant nuns flee care home for their abandoned convent in the Alps www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Alexei Ratmansky’s Pictures at an Exhibition delivers an uplifting close to London City Ballet’s excellent programme at @sadlerswells.bsky.social

A thrusting Daphnis et Chloé brings the BBC Proms Ravel celebrations to a climax bachtrack.com/review-wilso...

Ratmansky Time! 🤩

“Quanto? Il prezzo?” Is Oliver Mears' new Tosca a keeper? How was Anna Netrebko on her return to Covent Garden? My Opera Now review of the season opener is already online: www.gramophone.co.uk/opera-now/re...

“Quanto? Il prezzo?” Is Oliver Mears' new Tosca a keeper? How was Anna Netrebko on her return to Covent Garden? My Opera Now review of the season opener is already online: www.gramophone.co.uk/opera-now/re...

Pre-Tosca whoops…

Wordle 1,545 2/6 🤓 🟩⬜🟩⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Appalling statement by Flanders Festival Ghent re cancellation of the Munich Phil concert: “In the light of his [Lahav Shani’s] role as chief conductor of the Israel Philharmonic, we are unable to provide sufficient clarity about his attitude to the genocidal regime in Tel Aviv.”

Doug McLennan once said criticism should be like a watering-hole, where people with different opinions can gather. I quote that all the time. It's not about thumbs up/down, but sparking discussion. We know there's not one "right" opinion about art; why pretend that's what criticism should offer?

Looking at Ravel in a cracked mirror: my first report from the Festival Ravel bachtrack.com/review-chama...

More Ravel to come this week – Daphnis et Chloé in concert at the Proms. It's rarely danced now. You're more likely to see other Ravel works choreographed, reminding me of this all-Ravel programme I reviewed in Paris some years ago: canzonetta.substack.com/p/review-rav...

Souvenirs from the Festival Ravel. Inside the tin, the traditional “Pare Gabea” macarons from Maison Adam in Saint-Jean-de-Luz.

Fiesta! Cicadas! And a gilded church where Louis XIV married the Spanish Infanta Maria Theresa. A Spanish postcard to conclude my visit to the Festival Ravel bachtrack.com/review-jorda...

So the Metropolitan Opera can castigate Anna Netrebko and get on its high horse about Ukraine -- and then get in bed with the Saudis? And at this point it seems everyone is too punch-drunk even to be outraged. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/03/a...

Tilting at windmills: my second day at the Festival Ravel bachtrack.com/review-heiss...

And tonight’s venue, the Église Saint-Jean-Baptiste, ready for Spanish Ravel with the Orchestre National de France and Philippe Jordan 🇪🇸

Looking at Ravel in a cracked mirror: my first report from the Festival Ravel bachtrack.com/review-chama...

Whoops… (Basque edition)

It seems an appropriate time – and place – from which to repost this Gramophone cover story. Unravelling Maurice Ravel: a portrait of the composer at 150 www.gramophone.co.uk/features/art...

The Église Saint-Vincent in Ciboure, where tonight’s two concerts take place… and, a stone’s throw away, the house where Maurice Ravel was born, 150 years ago.

Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside…

As yet another Beethoven symphony cycle hits my shelves, I ask... why? open.substack.com/pub/canzonet...

So nearly in two! Wordle 1,534 3/6 🟩⬜🟨⬜⬜ 🟩🟨🟨🟩🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

“Banning Netrebko at this late juncture won’t have the slightest impact on her career, the war in Ukraine or Putin’s policies.” www.thetimes.com/culture/clas...

Protests, curtain calls, and disrepute clauses - some more thoughts on artists and global politics: paulcareyjones.wordpress.com/2025/08/30/p...

The greatest Mahler orchestra? The Royal Concertgebouw certainly sounded like it in this Fifth, especially with the terrific Katy Woolley playing Principal Horn. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

“Here the SBSO antiphonal violins played with a subterranean serenity” Yep, those would have been violas there on the right... Seriously, some people shouldn't be given press tickets.

Mambo! They've still got it... 💃🏽 Gustavo Dudamel and the Simón Bolívar rock the Southbank: bachtrack.com/review-dudam...

Mixed messaging: the Southbank Centre ushers leaping on anyone who so much as looks at their screen in the RFH when the only programme available to audiences is via a QR Code… on their phone.

Tell me more, tell me more Did you get very far? Tell me more, tell me more Is it 2 in a bar?

Ralph Vaughan Williams died on this day in 1958. Famed today for his Lark Ascending and Tallis Fantasia, but there's so much more of his music to celebrate: bachtrack.com/playlist-ral...