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

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I was at one of those gatherings where friends of friends sprawled into groups entirely unconnected from the first, like a suburban town long freed from its planner. “It must be great to be in enterta

The gargantuan, bewildering Louvre