Slipped Disc

The Years It’s only February but this, for me, is already the play of the year. The Years is about us and our time, but only if you are a woman who has lived through the […]

The Egyptian soprano Fatma Said has cancelled recitals in Linz and Hamburg. Her management says: ‘”Fatma Said deeply regrets that she cannot perform the upcoming concert due to unforeseen circumstances.’ German press reports say Fatma […]

Chorus members at Teatro San Carlo in Naples have instructed lawyers to take action for defamation against the English conductor Ed Gardner, who recently told the Times newspaper that the opera chorus was ‘made up […]

From SAI Composers Bureau: American composer Dr. Diane Thome passed away on January 13, 2025. She was 82. Dr. Thome was the first woman to receive a Ph.D. in Composition from Princeton University, where she […]

Professor Robert Eschbach has some fresh insights for us about the recently auctioned Stradivarius violin that once belonged the the formidable Joseph Joachim.   Joseph Joachim was the grandson of the internationally prominent wool merchant […]

From our agony aunt’s mailbag: Dear Alma, I’m a young American soprano in a mid-sized German state opera. They have offered me Violetta next season on condition I agree to learn some filthy atonal opera […]

There was a concert last night at Salle Colonne in memory of Bruno Ducol, whose death on January 11 went unreported in French media. A student of Messiaen and Pierre Schaeffer, Ducol became immersed in […]

In a exclusive extract from his new memoir, out on February 25, former English National Opera chorus singer Ian Bloomfield remembers an unpredicted opening night in Moscow in 1990.   We performed Verdi’s Macbeth at […]

  Bernard Kops was one of the great post-war Jewish playwrights, poets and novelists, and he died a year ago this week at the age of 97. His first play,The Hamlet of Stepney Green, was produced […]

It takes more than Mozart balls for a foreigner to conduct the Czech Philharmonic in Slavonic Dances. Hats off to Simon Rattle who brings off every micro-shift in these indigenous dances with aplomb. Enjoy.   […]