Bellini did pull the drama off, with a concise series of dramatic confrontations, in his greatest opera, Norma; here the plot gets off to a slow start, most of an over-long first act devoted to ...

These lovers were resplendent in different ways. Sara Jakubiak, singing her first Isolde, looked the part: red hair against green dress for the Irish Queen, pale, almost mask-like face white with ...

Two couples meet up for an apparently convivial meal, except that there’s a minefield under their feet. And when they trigger ...

Bengali pianist Zoe Rahman, because it evokes themes – voyage, migration and family – which resonate strongly with her. The ...

Terrorists are monsters. Or so we are told – pure evil. Well, it makes a good story. Even if it isn’t completely true.

One sometimes finds oneself wondering whether Harlan Coben is an author or a set of AI procedures designed to manufacture ...

Sweating in my lair, there’s no trip to the mecca this year. If the festival was on, I'd be there right now, but it’s a ...

Ben Ockrent’s Relics had me hooked from the moment the safety curtain started rising: a metal number with a banner of packing ...

Recorded over four intense weeks of work and play in a little studio in Chiswick – on the periphery of their old London stomping grounds – and folding four songs from the Hackney Diamonds sessions ...

Fifty years since Benjamin Britten died, and his operas are still in repertory: half a dozen of them at least. It’s a tribute ...

Judging from her second album, young country singer Willow Avalon has kissed her fair share of frogs. She doesn’t let them ...