Bohemian rhapsody

What Italian opera signified to the Habsburg court

Michael Chabon’s novel of superheroes and villains reborn as opera

Is there a special sorcery in Seoul? Cunning creativity in Canada? Preternatural pizzazz in Paris? Oh, why do so many great pianists come from this or that country? We even have some in Britain; is th

In her 2001 book about the city, travel writer Jan Morris famously described Trieste as ‘the meaning of nowhere’ – a place left behind by history and by its political geography. A quarter of a century

Jan Smaczny is enthralled by Isabelle Faust’s unique approach to the demanding material of Bach’s little-known violin works JS Bach Sonatas for Violin and Continuo Isabelle Faust (violin); Kristin von

Musical instruments have power, simply as things. They speak. They generate emotion. They tell stories about life, death, happiness and sadness – and about the past, which they can resurrect with curi