Top man, Ben, for sharing this.

This interview with conductor Ben Glassberg by my colleague Elisabeth Schwarz is well worth your time and a salutary reminder of the pressures performers face under the social media microscope: bachtrack.com/interview-be...

I thoroughly enjoyed this treat from Joshua Bell and the @asmforchestra. Here's my review for @bachtrack.com

I've read two grumpy online reviews of Barcelona's new Tristan und Isolde at the Liceu. Both scorned the stripped back design. I haven't seen the show so I can't comment. However, with an opera of Tristan's unique interiority and abstraction less is always more. This one sounds right up my street.

Tonight I'll be at Cadogan Hall to hear the ASMF and Joshua Bell in Brahms (the Vn Concerto) and Schumann (1st Symphony). Reviewing for @bachtrack.com

Ralph Moore's searching survey of every Pelléas et Mélisande audio recording up to and including Rattle. If you are as potty about Debussy's opera as I am, this is for you. You'll be challenged by some of his opinions... but that's the point! www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/201...

Wordle 1,675 6/6 ⬜⬜🟨⬜🟨 ⬜🟩⬜🟩⬜ ⬜🟩⬜🟩⬜ ⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩 🟩🟩⬜🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 That was close. My whole streak flashed before my eyes.

#News The new UK Opera Association has named former Labour MP and ex-professional cellist Thangam Debbonaire as its first chief executive. The lobby group launches with 20 founding members, incl. Covent Garden, ENO, Glyndebourne. What should it tackle first? #Opera #UK

I was moved as seldom before. A prodigious revival of RBO's La traviata that's anything but routine. ★★★★★ from me at @bachtrack.com

I was moved as seldom before. A prodigious revival of RBO's La traviata that's anything but routine. ★★★★★ from me at @bachtrack.com

Brook, 'Boozeball' and another Ashes hangover - www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricke... This is the definite article.

Ermonela Jaho is one of the great Violettas and tonight I'll be at the ROH to see & hear her once more. Richard Eyre's indelible staging of Verdi's La traviata is the perfect antidote to a recent slew of mayfly productions. I can't wait to see it again. #RBO Reviewing for @bachtrack.com

Three reviews by me in the February edition of Opera: - Die Rheinnixen (Gothic Opera) - The Cunning Little Vixen (RCM) - HMS Pinafore (ENO). Read, mark, learn and inwardly digest. Test follows

Happy New Fear! The new Private Eye is out now.

Feeling very uneasy at the evisceration of Jamie Smith by practically everyone. It is beyond cruel. How can he bounce back and improve after this? @tmsproducer.bsky.social

Really? Wordle 1,662 3/6 🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜ 🟩⬜⬜⬜🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

I've seen 57 operas this year. Here is my thread of the best and the, er, not-so-best. Operatic event of the year: The Story of Billy Budd, Sailor (Aix Festival) A taut, emotionally charged chamber reduction of Britten by composer Oliver Leith and director Ted Huffman. Unforgettable. 1/x

Stop promising ‘change’ (what sort of change and why?) and start delivering policies that reduce inequality and poverty and increase the material wellbeing of ordinary people.

Grandson #1 playing with an old Thunderbird 2 toy. "Thunderbirds are go!" quoth I, from the depth of my Boomer soul. "it's not Thunderbirds ARE go". he corrected me, "It's Thunderbirds SHOULD go". Oik.

Both richly deserved and overdue. Both ought to be on the next rung up. #Sir #Dame

Andrew Lloyd Webber's dramatic skills are underrated. Here, in under 2 minutes, is a musical distillation of his most celebrated character's fragmented, disturbed mind. It's just a scene change, but a brilliant one. #LoveNeverDies youtu.be/kXe-Nhe0j34?...

I haven't seen much TV over Christmas but if there's been anything more joyous than this I'll be surprised. I may have shed a tear or several. www.channel4.com/programmes/j...

Wordle 1,654 2/6 ⬜🟩⬜🟨⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Ooh!

Lest we forget

Here's an example of an abysmal staging that will sound a million dollars in audio only.

My daughter just asked me to name my favourite Christmas carol. My answer, as for most of my three score years and twelve, was this small miracle. Not even the infelicitous setting of 'laden' can make me love it less. youtu.be/qCRgNYyVuj4?...

Forget 'immersive'; there's a new piece of theatre jargon that's making me scream. It's 'reimagine'. As in 'The NT presents a bold new Hamlet reimagined by Myrtle Turtle as a meditation on postwar social mores...' or some such. It should carry a trigger warning. See it, say it, sod off.

I remember how the world stopped briefly to listen when that recording was first released.

I couldn't agree more. As you say, unforgettable.

My review of #Ariodante at the RBO (RO) is free to read at Musical America for the next 48 hours only. When it's gone it's, as they say, gone. Bon appétit! www.musicalamerica.com/mnews/newsst...

My review of #Ariodante at the RBO (RO) is free to read at Musical America for the next 48 hours only. When it's gone it's, as they say, gone. Bon appétit! www.musicalamerica.com/mnews/newsst...

Wordle 1,644 3/6 ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Oh very droll

This is a magnificent piece of sports journalism. Writing to cherish about a failing England cricketer. www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/d...

Great i/v w Annilese Miskimmon by @georgehallmusic.bsky.social in @thestage.co.uk. ENO's 1st decent AD in ages. Re ACE cancellation: 'The predominant shared feeling was shock, but we were inundated by international responses, so I actually felt very much aware of a circle of love for the company'

I've seen 57 operas this year. Here is my thread of the best and the, er, not-so-best. Operatic event of the year: The Story of Billy Budd, Sailor (Aix Festival) A taut, emotionally charged chamber reduction of Britten by composer Oliver Leith and director Ted Huffman. Unforgettable. 1/x

🚨 BREAKING — Ministers look at depoliticising top BBC jobs as Farage rides high in polls About time.. the huge pro Farage & Reform bias at BBC & determination to undermine the Govt constantly by spinning news has been vom inducing 🤢 It’s a Public News & Entertainment channel not Reform PR machine❗️

Our thanks to @drmatthewsweet.bsky.social for alerting us to the fact that the Daily Mail thought it was “Patricia” Hodge who carried out the Arts Council review…

If the grotesque clowns who cling to well paid jobs at @artscouncilengland.bsky.social try to put a positive spin on today's excoriating review, they'll deserve all the effluent that gets spat at them.

Review of Arts Council England includes scrapping Let’s Create and Grantium and much else besides www.gov.uk/government/p...

Camille Saint-Saëns died OTD in 1921. Excuse enough to reshare this classic photo of him in his PJs and my playlist of favourite works (plus a few rarities): bachtrack.com/playlist-cam...

"...unclear as to how and why decisions were taken in the last round to cut the English National Opera and the touring grants for the Welsh National Opera and Glyndebourne at the same time. It is difficult to understand how careful consideration of all the relevant factors was given." #LetsCremate

My review of the RBO's splendiferous #Ariodante has now been published by Musical America ($). "Emily D’Angelo was miraculously focused and believable. The lyrical intensity of her great Act 2 aria “Scherza infida” resulted in perhaps the finest ten minutes of opera London has seen this fall.

Greatly enjoyed Wake Up Dead Man, the best Knives Out movie by a street. Beautifully crafted by @rianjohnson.bsky.social and gripping from first to last. Terrific cast. Intelligent script with fizzing layers of subtext pretty much throughout. All that and Epping Forest pretending to be in the USA.

"Post a favourite work of art from the year exactly 50 years before you were born."

A Councillor no one ever heard of from throbbing Metropolis of Exeter “defects” from the spent force Tory Party to Reform & of course BBC Reports it But @LibDems win more council by-elections than any other party in October, and they dont bother 🤷🏼‍♂️ At BBC if it’s not pro Reform it’s not newsworthy😡

I missed the first night of Ariodante because I was at the second night of Last Days so tonight I'm at the second night of Ariodante. I need a diary secretary.

Jeremy Sams on #BBCRecordReview Building a Library - my adored Pelléas et Mélisande. My own top choice would have been Inghelbrecht's single-take studio recording on Testament - Maurane + Danco sheer perfection in the title roles - with the Philharmonia in 1951. (Haitink on Naïve deleted, alas.)

Oliver Leith's Last Days. I stand by my oft-spouted claim that this is the best new opera of the century. If anything it was even more powerful in this fantastic revival.

Tonight I'm playing #RBO catch-up. While my colleagues are at the opening of Ariodante, I'll be down in the Linbury to watch the second night of Last Days, which I'm reviewing for Opera. Then on Thursday I'll be catching up with Ariodante, one of Handel's finest. Hope I've got that right...