MY VERSION OF EVENTS....

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Nicki Wells - “Ellipsis”

I rarely write reviews but I have been a fan of Nicki Wells for many years, rowing her boat on Twitter endlessly for the quality of her voice, an instrument that has been best demonstrated in the Indian classical music that she has become known for (particularly in her work with Nitin Sawhney and Kefaya among many others). The stratospheric heights she can reach are startling in that idiom, but the voice has greater flexibility and range than is shown in that work, and on this solo album, we get to hear its unique quality, precision and expression. Ellipsis is a restrained, but very immediate album, with the voice often upfront in the mix, raw and uncompressed, and we even get to hear the guts and moving parts of her piano. Wells is an accomplished musician and melodist too; on 'Carry On', a song about rebirth and overcoming whatever is set before us, her multilayered vocal harmonies burst from the tight mix into an epic choral tapestry created entirely by Wells hersel

Audiences will decide the future of opera

I have news: the audience will decide the future of opera. When our season at Opera Holland Park comes to an end, I pore over spreadsheets trying to find reasons why our audience have behaved in the way that they have, and the most concentrated analysis tends to come after seasons during which our house has been full. The theory is this; if we have underperformed, we are programmed to find solutions, but if we have performed well, we are less likely to look for the gremlins that might lose us that ever-capricious audience in a trice – you are never more vulnerable than when you are successful. Sometimes, though, one can miss the obvious, or perhaps ignore it. In nearly three decades in opera, I have experienced one "boom" in the art form but an almost perpetual "crisis" of confidence, an alarmed perma-reflection on whether we remain relevant as an art form. This introspective brew is spiced by the occasional real crisis, like that recently at ENO, but we never real

Sometimes, facts really don't matter to people

Since the Brexit vote, and especially since the recent Autumn statement, there has been something familiar nagging at me; the remarkable refusal of Brexiters to accept or acknowledge the facts set out by the government and in the OBR's forecasts. It reminds me of something, a feeling I have had before. I know that the expression post-truth annoys a lot of people, but it is a thing, it really exists. People, for whatever reason can knowingly refuse to accept bare facts when it suits them. It isn't a new phenomenon at all. I am bound to say, moreover, that I have tended to experience it in a malign sense, when the things people want to believe are unconscionable or driven by prejudice of one kind or another. Last night I remembered where it was that I had last seen the phenomenon and it was an experience that left me astonished at the time, but which also provoked in me a genuine disgust for my fellow citizens. I am afraid it is an unpleasant parallel scenario, but it was pro

MY VERSION OF EVENTS....

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Nicki Wells - “Ellipsis”

Audiences will decide the future of opera

Journalists: keep it simple!

XTC -This is Pop (Documentary, Sky 1)

The Oxbridge divide

My name is Jose Mourinho, and I'm not Special (at the moment)

Gelb and The Met

Women in opera

Sometimes, facts really don't matter to people

New horizons