Song of courage

Glasgow, 1942. The Carl Rosa Opera Company was in town to perform Puccini’s Madama Butterfly. Tickets had been snapped up by local people – including many who didn’t really know what an opera was. The

Opera is dead. And has been for quite a long time. I don’t care what anybody says about Poulenc and Prokofiev, I cannot be persuaded that any listenable music theatre has been written since Puccini. (

This mission was so secret that few published records exist. Now, best-selling author Damien Lewis has unearthed the full incredible story from long-hidden files, family archives and untold personal accounts

Zémide*; Pygmalion** Ema Nikolovska, Virginie Thomas et al; A Nocte Temporis, Chœur de Chambre de Namur/ Reinoud Van Mechelen Château de Versailles Spectacles CVS174 80:10 mins Readers may be grateful

CIAO TO LA SCALA OF FOOTBALL ST ...

OF ALL THE cars this fabled designer is responsible for, his favourite may or may not surprise you. It’s the archly utilitarian Fiat Panda. But we’ll get to that. ‘It is somehow easy,’ he says, ‘to cr