Features

Aldeburgh Festival - classical treat if you pay enough

Members increasingly get first shout for tickets at events such as the Aldeburgh Festival. Join or prepare to queue for returns, says Jessica Duchen.

Inside Features

Independent Classical podcast: Sir John Tomlinson

Thursday, 3 February 2011

Sir John Tomlinson - one of the great Wagnerians of our time and surely the greatest Wotan since Hans Hotter - returns to English National Opera to sing the role of Gurnemanz, the eldest and wisest of the Grail knights, in Wagner's last opera Parsifal.

The relative beauty of the violin

Friday, 28 January 2011

Einstein sensed the secrets of the universe in music. A professor and a virtuoso are to explore the connection. By Jessica Duchen

Independent classical podcast: Kate Royal

Friday, 28 January 2011

The words "Kate" and "Royal" may temporarily be causing some confusion for the Google search engine but to singing aficionados the world over this royal Kate should be the one in pole position.

Soprano Claire Rutter is aiming for a happy Finnish

Friday, 28 January 2011

Singing the title role in Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia is a tough call at any time, but for soprano Claire Rutter, who stars in this role at ENO on Monday, it's going to be tougher than usual. For film-maker Mike Figgis is making his operatic directorial debut with a production that will mark several firsts: it will be simultaneously broadcast by Sky on three TV channels, it will be screened in 3D in selected cinemas, and it will be interspersed with footage of a film he has already shot in Rome, to a soundtrack created from the score.

Do we really need to sex up opera?

Thursday, 27 January 2011

A new production about Anna Nicole Smith and the arrival of 3D broadcasts aim to widen the appeal of an art form that is perceived as elitist.

Heads up: Anna Nicole

Sunday, 23 January 2011

An aria of sex, drugs, gold-digging and tragedy

The cellist who wants to shake up London with a classical mystery tour

Friday, 21 January 2011

The South Bank Centre's new artist-in-residence aims to fill every corner of the venue with new music, he tells Jessica Duchen

Joseph Kaiser: The tenor who tamed Tamino

Friday, 21 January 2011

There are many reasons to look forward to David McVicar's lovely take on The Magic Flute, now being revived at Covent Garden. Statuesque Kate Royal sings Pamina, ebullient Christopher Maltman sings Papageno, and that irresistible soubrette Anna Devin incarnates Papagena, but the most interesting casting is Joseph Kaiser as Tamino, the sweet boy who falls in love with a face in a painting and undergoes Herculean trials to get his girl. Tamino is often presented as a pale, two-dimensional character, but this Canadian tenor – a larger-than-life figure with a gale-force personality– will have none of it.

Simone Dinnerstein: Adventures in baby-sitting

Sunday, 16 January 2011

Once, she was reciting in prisons. Today, the pianist is a classical superstar. What happened? Bach – and her first child

Piano's new superstars hit the wrong notes – and gloriously

Friday, 14 January 2011

At last, says Jessica Duchen, the robotic sterility of recitals is being swept away by young artists for whom personality is as important than accuracy

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