Watch: Lesley Garrett on her role in Pleasure – 'Opera is not a museum art form’
12 May 2016
The singer returns to opera with Mark Simpson’s new thriller, set in a gay bar.
Opera Essentials: Mark Simpson’s Pleasure
6 May 2016
Our quick introduction to Mark Simpson’s thrilling debut opera.
Listen: Wagner’s Tannhäuser – ‘It’s an amazing discovery to feel that way about music’
29 April 2016
Emma Bell, Christian Gerhaher and Hartmut Haenchen speak about Wagner’s early masterpiece.
Your Reaction: Richard Wagner's Tannhäuser
27 April 2016
What did you think of Tim Albery’s production of Wagner's potent early opera?
Tannhäuser Musical Highlight: ‘O du, mein holder Abendstern’
18 April 2016
Wagner and Verdi were rivals in many ways, but the Italianate flourishes of Wolfram’s Hymn to the Evening Star reveals a begrudging mutual influence.
Opera Essentials: Tannhäuser
15 April 2016
5 things you need to know about Wagner’s potent early opera.
Remembrance of things past: Nostalgia in opera
14 December 2015
Opera is one of many art forms that loves to dwell on what might have been.
Holding up a mirror: How opera composers reflect community and society
19 November 2015
Composers have long experimented with different ways of giving a sense of community, often using the chorus to highly dramatic effect.
Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream: Rethinking opera's approach to death
29 October 2015
Death finds an entirely new expression in Georg Friedrich Haas’s new opera Morgen und Abend.
First Night Revisited: Tannhäuser on 21 November 1955
9 October 2015
The first post-war production of Wagner's opera at Covent Garden had a chilly reception from the press, but provided opportunities for some remarkable emerging talent.