CLASSICAL ICONOCLAST

Currently circulating round is a website that is legit but looks like a spoof.  This Mahler anniversary is becoming a pigs trough.. Everyon...

This is the full review in Opera Today of the Verdi Rigoletto Live from Mantua with Placido Domingo - polished and tightened up.  Please cl...

Click here for a link to a recording of the Habanera, made in 1905. Mlle Jeanne Marié de l L'isle (1872-1926) sings the Habanera fro...

Glyndebourne normally comes to the Proms at the start of the season, clashing with performances at Lewes. Now it leads the treats nearer the...

Paolo Gavanelli has created Rigoletto well over 200 times in many different productions including the very dark 2001 version at the Royal Op...

RAI's live TV film transmission from Mantua of  Rigoletto should please those who think opera "must" belong to a specific time...

La donna è mobile in Mandarin - Grace Chang (Ge Lan) See (and hear) why she's such an icon! This comes from the film Wild, Wild Rose w...

A feast of Dum Transissets at Saturday's Prom Matinee, built around Brian Ferneyhough's Dum Transisset I-IV. A whole Prom built aro...

A week after their concert in Berlin, the Berliner Philharmoniker and Simon Rattle brought Mahler 1 and Beethoven 4 to Prom 65.  Silly to ...

François-Xavier Roth is creating waves because he's such a forthright personality, so individualistic. France seems to produce pioneers ...

Isn't he cute! He'll grow up to be Billy Budd and Dr Malatesta.

What's the big deal about Beyoncé being the source of Mark Anthony Turnage's Hammered Out ?  Turnage has always mixed genres, like h...

Hindemith's Mathis der Maler with the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester (Prom 62 ) should have been a wonderful experience. The GMJO redefi...

Gustav Mahler and the Tarot? Obviously there's no evidence of him believing in esoteric divination. But the Tarot is steeped in western ...

On a  cylinder recording made on 27th March 1912, Alfred Dreyfus speaks about his case. In 1894, he'd been accused of spying, and driven...