Arias of achievement

First, a full disclosure: I asked four organisers of some of the most popular residential piano courses if they could put me in touch with former students who might be willing to share their experienc

Opera: The Queen of Spades/L’elisir d’amore Garsington ...

It was the Viennese critic Hermann Bahr who likened Mahler’s arrival in a hotel lobby to a gust of wind forcing open a window, or water bursting from a pipe. There’s something similarly elemental abou

Did I ever tell you that my husband is a serial entrepreneur? No? Well, I don’t like to boast, and it turns out there’s not much money in cornflakes anyway!” All of a sudden, I am jolted wide awake as

There comes a point in life for most of us when we say, enough. We say goodbye to responsibilities that had begun to feel more like obligations, and we either seek new challenges, or find joy in what

Fascinated to know whether she could stand on a stage and make strangers snigger like she does her friends and family, Gaby Huddart enrolled on a stand-up comedy course