At a time when rumours of Sir Simon Rattle returning to the UK, no less to head the London Symphony Orchestra, were running thick and fast, it was no surprise that I found myself in a sold-out Barbican Hall, preparing

The casual operagoer would be forgiven for not being sure whether The Royal Opera House’s new production of Giuseppe Verdi’s Ballo in Maschera was set in Boston, as it usually is, or in Stockholm, as it often is and was

The Hong Kong Philharmonic under Jaap van Zweden pulled off a real coup. Carefully marketing the orchestra’s first ever Rheingold, the first of the four operas of Richard Wagner’s Ring cycle that the orchestra is spacing out over four years

In the morning of New Year’s Day 2015, roughly 60 million viewers in 90 countries worldwide will turn on their television to watch the New Year’s Concert of the Vienna Philharmonic. That kind of marketing success is normally reserved for

We’re blasted with the full force of the chorus right from the beginning of the show, accompanying a brutal prison drug search. This was one of many lights in which we saw the English National Opera chorus during ENO’s production

How and why is the city of Xian 15 million strong and host of the “Silk Road Festival“ so immaculate? The answer is an army of street sweepers working nonstop, 24 hours. It all starts in the morning with the

Vikram Seth, perhaps most well-known for his novel A Suitable Boy (1993), is an Indian novelist and poet who has received numerous awards including Padma Shri (the fourth highest civilian award in the Republic of India awarded by the Government),

Hero maidens in the sky, taking the fallen warriors to their golden future – that’s the normal vision of the Valkyries. Don’t forget the sword and the winged helmet! After Das Rheingold, Wagner continued the story of The Ring of