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Articles by David Nice
theartsdesk Q&A: Pianist Stephen Kovacevich
“Whatever happened to Stephen Bishop?” is not a question likely to be asked by followers of legendary pianism. Born in San Pedro, Los Angeles on 17 October 1940, the young talent took his stepfather’s name as his career was launched at the age of 11. Later he honoured his own father’s Croatian "Kovacevich", by appending it to the “Bishop”.
Angel's Bone, English National Opera review - alien abuse horror rife with aural and visual shocks
Nothing, least of all Robert Beale's relatively amiable review of ENO's Manchester premiere, quite prepared me for how horrible this experience turned out to be. Brilliantly so, you could say, since it seems that in taking the staging from an in-the-round experience with a standing audience to behind the Coliseum's proscenium arch, director Kip Williams hits even harder, with three video operators projecting giant close-ups above and behind.
Louise Alder, Joseph Middleton, Wigmore Hall review - a soprano for all seasons
Everybody loves soprano Louise Alder, above all for her personality and instinctive communication, less obviously for the ever more impressive technique which has allowed her voice to grow from lighter-lyric origins into something fleshier.
Academy Symphony Orchestra, Hrůša, RAM review - electrifying Bartók and Janáček
It's a double first, please, for all the students involved in what for me are two of the year's best concerts. Back in May, two soloists and a wind ensemble played at the highest level under Edward Gardner in concertos by Weill and Stravinsky. Yesterday afternoon, we were blitzed by two graphic masterpieces that have to be played at white heat, but with precision, or they simply won't work: Bartók's Suite from The Miraculous Mandarin and Janáček's Taras Bulba.
Chiaroscuro Quartet, Wigmore Hall review - revelatory, modern-sounding Haydn, Beethoven stranger than ever
"Chiaroscuro" - "light-dark", usually applied to bold contrasts within a single painting - isn't a term I'd have thought a good fit for the gut strings of period instruments or the dapper lucidity of Haydn.
theartsdesk Q&A: Conductor Stéphane Denève
He's just launched the last of seven phenomenally successful seasons as music director of a transfigured Royal Scottish National Orchestra. Subscriptions for the Edinburgh and Glasgow concerts have doubled, attendances soared, and Stéphane Denève is a popular figure not just in the musical world but also in Scotland's wider cultural scene, not least as measured by his special guest appearance in the Sunday Post's long-running cartoon series The Broons.
La Bataille de Gaulle review - pitch-perfect portrait of a maverick hero
Many epic biopics make a messy spread of their protagonist's life (the overrated Oppenheimer is a prime example). Not this one. Though De Gaulle's title in France means it could have spanned its extraordinary hero's exploits in both World Wars.
The Girl from Arles, OAE, Elder, QEH review - a summer in Emmerdale, not Provence
After a morning spent mesmerised by Simon Abkarian's De Gaulle, a hero disappeared by his supposed allies only to bounce back, in Part One of Antonin Baudry's masterly film, could more French tears be shed that evening for the emotional havoc wrought by The Girl from Arles, aka "L'Arlésienne", who never appears at all in Daudet's scenes from 19th century Provençal life?
The Girl from Arles, OAE, Elder, QEH review - a summer in Emmerdale, not Provence
After a morning spent mesmerised by Simon Abkarian's De Gaulle, a hero disappeared by his supposed allies only to bounce back, in Part One of Antonin Baudry's masterly film, could more French tears be shed that evening for the emotional havoc wrought by The Girl from Arles, aka L'Arlésienne, who never appears at all in Daudet's scenes from 19th century Provençal life?
Julius Caesar, BBC Four review - electrifying TV launch of all-women Shakespeare trilogy
Who would have thought, when Phyllida Lloyd's Donmar Julius Caesar opened to justified fanfare, that two more Shakespeare masterpieces would be sustained no less powerfully within the women's-prison context over the following years? Faced with the "which of the three did you like best?" question – and I saw them all on a single day at the King's Cross makeshift theatre – the answer would have to be "each one at the time I saw it".
War Requiem, LPO, Gardner, RFH review - sharp-edged, urgent harrowing
Shostakovich declared Britten's War Requiem and Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde the two greatest large-scale works of the 20th century. I don't dispute it, and always thought that each should only be heard once every three to five years, keeping their impact fresh. This, though, is my second War Requiem of 2026, and it couldn't have been more different from the first on Good Friday at the Baden-Baden Festival.
Lammermuir Festival 2026, Part 3 review - other worlds perfectly inhabited
Ten concerts in seven different East Lothian churches, starting with a winter journey and ending in tears from Dowland: these would be riches enough for any top festival. But this was only the last four days of a nearly two-week programme. Simon Thompson has already covered now-regular visitor Jeremy Denk in Mozart piano concertos and vivacious Concerto Copenhagen in Haydn symphonies.
theartsdesk at the 103rd Arena di Verona Opera Festival - Zeffirelli spectaculars still dazzle and move
An epiphany of golden Chinese palaces and magically-lit Egyptian pyramids, not to mention the highest standards of singing and playing, won me round to the Arena di Verona experience. I'd always shunned it. Wouldn't the voices be miked? They aren't. Wouldn't the entertainment for 10,000 spectators in Italy's third largest Roman colosseum after Rome and Capua ruin Verdi's many intimate scenes?
BBC Proms: Van den Heever, The Met Orchestra, Nézet-Séguin review - a Strauss goddess descends
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BBC Proms: Barton, Hilley, BBCPO, Bihlmaier review - orchestral magic in El-Turk, Haydn and Mahler
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Ulster American, Irish Repertory Theatre, Abbey Theatre, Dublin review - plenty of laughs, no layering
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The Curing Line, Kilkenny Arts Festival review - myriad musical takes on an Irish story
It's an uncanny coincidence that two operas about pain relief which goes wrong should premiere at Irish and Scottish festivals at the same time. Today also sees Simon Thompson's review of Missy Mazzoli's The Galloping Cure, imaging the American opioid crisis, at the Edinburgh International Festival, and I'll take his word for it that Mazzoli does a better job on this subject than she did in a flat operatic adaptation of Lars von Trier's Breaking the Waves at a previous EIF.
Into the Woods, Noël Coward Theatre review - honouring a masterpiece
Into the Woods, let's dare to state it, is the most perfect music-theatre creation of the last 40 years. Sondheim's sense of timing, equal to Puccini's, and his unprecedented meshing and deconstructing of fairy-tales, with James Lapine, don't require more than making a clear path on the director's part, responding to the magic and the scariness in the designs/lighting and a cast that can truly sing across the board, not just deliver the patter.
BBC Proms: Alder, LPO, Gardner review - a philosophical Alpine hike
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BBC Proms: Jussen Brothers, CBSO, Yamada review - razor-sharp Poulenc, soft-focus Adams
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theartsdesk at the Pärnu Music Festival 2026 - Utopia with the Järvis and other great musicians
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Ariadne auf Naxos, Glyndebourne review - from the half-life of the marionettes
Can the 1916 Prologue of Strauss and Hofmannsthal added to a revised version of a 1912 opera-within-a-play setting the backstage shenanigans to music ever fail? Yes, alas. It fell horribly flat last night despite some radiant singing.
The Importance of Being Earnest, Garsington Opera review - mayhem perfectly mastered
You don't have to be mad to enjoy Gerald Barry's methodically berserk approach to Wilde, but your wits might have begun to turn by the interval and you'll question your sanity by the end. Director Jack Furness has extra ideas the composer would surely like - Australia?
BBC Proms: Selaocoe, BBCPO, Noseda review - individuality meets tradition, with mixed results
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Des canyons aux étoiles, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Dudamel, Barbican
Art can inspire music, and vice versa. When concert (as opposed to theatre or film) scores are accompanied by images, however, the effect dilutes the impact of both; above all, the imagination stops working on the visual dimension created in the mind's eye.
theartsdesk at the Aldeburgh Festival - second-midweek concert gems in a row
There was so much to be thankful for throughout the three days I spent at the Aldeburgh Festival this year. First, of course, to have struck gold in so many of the concerts I caught was lucky enough in itself. But the context has never felt more vital as breezes cooled the beach at Aldeburgh and the Alde estuary at Snape while London sweltered in unnaturally high temperatures and a humidity quite different from the fresh airs of the Suffolk coast.
Bloomsday and before, Dublin review - first-rate 'Ulysses' adaptations and a new take on 'The Dead'
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Serse, Academy of Ancient Music, Cummings, Barbican review - Handel royalty
The conundrum of five women, three of them men, is the same as it was in the last Serse I witnessed, in the more intimate surroundings of St Martin-in-the-Fields. Paula Murrihy then sang the role of Arsamene, playing brother to Emily D'Angelo's Xerxes and lover to Lucy Crowe's Romilda. Now she's the imperious, capricious ruler to the life, totally different from D'Angelo's but just as valid.
Ridout, OAE, Rattle, National Concert Hall, Dublin review - mixed results in brave Berlioz double-bill
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Selaocoe, Bantu Ensemble / Leonkoro Quartet, Dublin International Chamber Music Festival review - consummate joy
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Don Giovanni / Ní Bhriain, Carroll, Blackwater Valley Opera Festival review - Irish musicians shine
A libertine who deserves punishment makes a good/bad start when a male director decides he really has tried to rape Donna Anna, and doesn't just enjoy post-coital badinage with her.
Norma, Irish National Opera review - soprano power wins an often shoddy battle
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theartsdesk at the Sheffield Chamber Music Festival - dawn and dusk, Beckett and Feldman
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An Ideal Husband, Gate Theatre, Dublin review - focused energy keeps mannered dark comedy afloat
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theartsdesk Q&A: Conductor Jakub Hrůša
Only four flutes were on stage at the start of Jakub Hrůša’s latest concert with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, the reins of which he took over from Jonathan Nott last September. Charles Ives would have been amazed to hear his “Voices of Druids” on the strings sounding, along with the solo trumpet, from the distance.
Carolin Widmann, Irish Chamber Orchestra, RIAM, Dublin review - elegant simplicity and fierce complexity in Haydn(s)
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Grosvenor, Philharmonia, Rouvali, RFH review - two-thirds excellent Strauss extravaganza
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Wozzeck, LPO, Gardner, RFH review - harrowing tale told in brutal-tender music and thousands of photographs
Before last night's still-shocking saga of a downtrodden soul began, Southbank Artistic Director Mark Ball came on to tell us that while concerts were mere events, Multitudes, "our multi-arts festival powered by orchestral music", was offering experiences. Rachel Halliburton, who reviewed Bach's The Art of Fugue with acrobats, would agree; Bernard Hughes, though, found Messiaen's Turangalîla ruined by a "tiresome film".
Kraggerud, Irish Chamber Orchestra, RIAM, Dublin review - Mozart and movement
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Gerald Barry's Salome, NSO Ireland, Kuhn, National Concert Hall, Dublin review - funny-queasy genius
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theartsdesk at the Baden-Baden Easter Festival - from trenches terror to forest fairytale
In between these epic pillars came a series of chamber concerts from the MCO's players - none more communicative or sophisticated in any orchestra, including the Berlin Philharmonic which visited the spa town in recent years until this Easter - a quartet from the Concergebouw and a recital in which there was no doubt that Lukas Geniušas is among pianists what Asmik Grigorian is among sopranos: simply the best.
O'Sullivan, Fantasia Orchestra, Fetherstonhaugh, Smith Square Hall review - the sassy airs of summer
Despite Proms appearances, I'm still not sure that Tom Fetherstonhaugh, mover and shaker of the young Fantasia Orchestra, has yet had quite the limelight he deserves for original programming that reaches out, not to mention for the sleek and romantic sound he got from a relatively small body of strings in this lovely sequence (portamentos as apt for Gershwin as for Mahler). Harry Baker also deserves full credit for a chain of wondrous arrangements.
Zimmermann, Belcea Quartet, Wigmore Hall review - perfection in two very different string quintets
Zimmermann held centre place in Mozart's G minor Quintet, telling from the start because Mozart has the first viola as the lower of the top three voices at the start, only to take the upper line with second viola and cello in plangent symmetries. Time and again Corina Belcea gave us a voice from another planet, though there was marshalled passion in the Menuetto.
Daunoraitė, Saluste-Bridoux, Academy Symphony Orchestra, Gardner, RAM review - youthful brilliance in Stravinsky and Weill
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St Matthew Passion, Irish Baroque Orchestra, Whelan, St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin review - searing drama as before
The revelation this year was the Christus of Frederick Long, supported by hyper-expressive work from the strings of Orchestra 1. He lives the passion with youthful intensity, its anguish etched into his face as well as the fully-fledged bass-baritone voice, stepping out from perfect work in the four-strong Chorus 1 and back again with inspirational adaptability. He also gives us the joy and release of “Mach dich.
Pukhlianko, National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, Sirenko, NCH Dublin review - a golden mean in Beethoven 3
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Rusalka, Irish National Opera review - great singing half-eclipsed by muddled staging
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Tristan und Isolde, Metropolitan Opera live transmission review - ideal dream lovers
Have you ever witnessed both a Tristan and an Isolde physically plausible and vocally up to everything that Wagner throws at them, from violent cursing to heartbreaking tenderness? I hadn't until yesterday. At first it seemed as if Yuval Sharon's supposedly controversial production would smother Lise Davidsen's Isolde and Michael Spyres' Tristan in concepts and restrict them to a narrow curve set back from the front of the stage and hovering above it.
Tristan und Isolde, Metropolitan Opera live transmission review - ideal dream lovers
Have you ever witnessed both a Tristan and an Isolde physically plausible and vocally up to everything that Wagner throws at them, from violent cursing to heartbreaking tenderness? I hadn't until yesterday. At first it seemed as if Yuval Sharon's supposedly controversial production would smother Lise Davidsen's Isolde and Michael Spyres' Tristan in concepts and restrict them to a narrow curve set back from the front of the stage and hovering above it.
Siegfried, Royal Opera review - no bully, but a bright boy who learns fast
When the joyful energy at the final curtain - love briefly triumphant in the power-dominated world of Wagner's Ring - is as insanely high as it was at the end of a dizzying first act, that killer of a forging scene, you know this is a winner.
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