As we wrap up 2025, here is a look back at some of the most-read articles of the year. We will focus mainly on longer-form pieces like reviews and interviews for this article.

Calixto Bieito’s staging of Bizet’s masterpiece remains a calling card for ENO – dust, danger and late-Franco grit cutting against picture-postcard Seville. I’ve admired it here before on many ...

As several accounts testify, this opera was created specifically to be performed in 1735 at the new Covent Garden Theatre, which would eventually be replaced by the Royal Opera House in 1858. Handel ...

Tchaikovsky based his opera Eugene Onegin, which opened last night at Opera Holland Park, on a Pushkin novel, written 50 years before the opera’s 1879 premiere. The composer kept Pushkin’s title, but ...

Opera Holland Park's dazzling mini-festival of song, dreamed up by enterprising baritone Julien Van Mellaerts with the programming help of pianist Dylan Perez and the supply of a state-of-the-art ...

Claus Guth’s Royal Opera production of Janacek’s Jenufa was scheduled to open in March 2020, but was aborted at the last moment by Covid. Better late than never. It has now opened, and it makes a ...

Rigoletto, Royal Opera, review: thrilling music, ascetic sets and a truly grotesque doll Oliver Mears's new staging of Verdi's great tragedy feels like a work-in-progress but already has plenty to ...

There was a time when Phantom felt like it was haunting the outskirts of London's West End while newer, brighter and shinier musicals grabbed the spotlight. Yet lockdown has somehow given this ...

Sophie Gilpin’s staging of Telemann’s comedy is funny and thought-provoking While highly regarded in his time, the music of the extremely prolific German composer Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767) is ...

Il Trittico, Scottish Opera, review: Puccini triptych is an unmitigated triumph Puccini's trio of one-act operas are rarely performed together, but Scottish Opera make a supreme case for honouring the ...

Gounod’s opera has enjoyed a resurgence in recent decades and its huge, late 19th-century popularity once again seems entirely reasonable. With a number of late replacements among the cast, the Royal ...

Offbeat browser Opera has recently expanded its growing list of capabilities with an affordable VPN option. Unlike Opera's free VPN, Opera VPN Pro can secure all of ...