All the heavy lifting for this posting is being done by far better writers than I. I just wanted to share two poems that seem to me to be...

In my previous Blog on smoking and singing (‘My Lady Nicotine’), I mentioned that my father suffered from early onset dementia, partly,...

I had not heard of Claude Vivier (1948-1983) before hearing his Piece pour violoncelle et piano that started the wonderfully stimulating...

There's not a Shakespeare sonnet Or a Beethoven quartet That's easier to like than you Or harder to forget. You think that sounds...

Purcell’s ‘The Fairy Queen’ is, in many ways, very hard to perform effectively. A series of masques intended to be interpolated between...

epiphany [ɪˈpɪf(ə)ni, ɛˈpɪf(ə)ni] NOUN 1.      the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles as represented by the Magi (Matthew 2:1–12)....

‘Auld Lang Syne’ is all very well, but it has never felt like ‘mine’ in the way, for example, ‘Jerusalem’ does, so I shall not be singing...

Our cat Sid was killed this morning, hit by a car. These few random thoughts are in his memory. Sid and his sister Nancy were named, not...

Friday 8th December, was the day of Shane MacGowan’s funeral. My Blog is mainly concerned with ‘classical’ singers but, as I said when...

I don’t ‘do’ Facebook so I’m grateful to my son Hugo Herman-Wilson for forwarding a posting detailing the ten ‘greatest’ British...

In my review of James Newby’s recital disc ‘Fallen to Dust’, I said that one of my favourite baritones was John Shirley-Quirk and here I...

Keel Watson (August 9 1964 - November 8 2023) I did not know Keel well but was pleased to have chatted to him during the run of...

‘Peter Grimes’ – English National Opera, Friday 6th October 2023 Gwyn Hughes Jones was indisposed for the performances of ENO’s ‘Peter...

Why is Sir John Falstaff so popular with readers and opera and theatre goers? From an objective viewpoint he is not at all admirable, or...

As men, Othello and Macbeth have some things in common: they are both men of action, brave and proven warriors, whose natural element...

Football, Association Football, Soccer, Footie, the Game, call it what you will, is arguably the most potent social-cultural phenomenon...

VERDI AND SHAKESPEARE Over 200 operas have been based on the plays of Shakespeare. The reasons for this are not hard to identify: there...

To start with an erratum: apologies to Ruairi Bowen for spelling his first name incorrectly in my initial review. It's also worth noting...

Andrew Irwin Loch Erne’s Shore Since I started to listen seriously to classical singers I have been particularly fond of the repertoire...

‘Iolanthe’ Oxford University Gilbert and Sullivan Society May 1973 My last post – a review of ENO’s recent ‘Iolanthe’ – stirred some long...