July 2021

This month’s cover features Peter Grimes at Madrid’s Teatro Real, a new production by Deborah Warner due to come to Covent Garden in March 2022. In our regular series of articles, there’s a ‘People’ profile of the much-admired American soprano Roberta Alexander, and in ‘Great singers in great roles’ John Tomlinson talks about Wotan.

A special feature this month is a round table discussion asking, in the light of such movements as #MeToo and Black Lives Matter, whether certain operas (especially their librettos) might become unperformable, if they are not already. Artists—singers and directors—plus administrators and critics from around the world share their views.

As well as looking into the future, our features this month take a long historical view, on such topics as:

—The celebrated mezzo-soprano and composer Pauline Viardot-García, born 200 years ago

—All about timing: the Dresden Semperoper’s 1936 visit to Covent Garden

—Arrigo Boito’s ‘other’ opera, Nerone, as it is revived at Bregenz

—Charles Santley, the globetrotting 19th century British baritone

We review from around the world and as the UK re-opens, with first-night reports from Covent Garden and Glyndebourne. Our ‘Disc of the month’ is Oksana Volkova’s ‘Poison d’amour’ on the Delos label, and ‘For the record’ is with the Danish baritone Bo Skovkus.