May 2021

Pouring the champagne on our cover this month is Juan Diego Flórez as Alfredo in the Vienna Staatsoper’s La traviata. The celebratory theme continues inside with your guide to the International Opera Awards, with the online gala coming up on May 10.

In our regular series of ‘People’ features and ‘Great singers in great roles’, there’s a profile of the tenor David Butt Philip and an interview with the great diva Raina Kabaivanska about singing Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur. Our focus on singing also turns towards how artists have dealt with Covid-19 (the bass Brindley Sherratt writes a candid personal account) and their hopes for rebuilding careers as the pandemic recedes, and we publish the final instalment of our ‘Career navigation’ series.

Other features include:

— Personal rather than public: Napoleon’s true taste in opera

— Exotic and irrational: Samuel Johnson revisited

— James Levine, 1943-2021

— ‘For the record’ with the soprano Marie McLaughlin

We review live performances wherever they have been happening and cover new recordings and books. Our Disc of the Month is a Gluck rarity, Demofoonte, on Brilliant Classics.

Summary of May 2021

• We profile the tenor David Butt Philip as he prepares to open the Glyndebourne season 
• Star bass Brindley Sherratt on singing again after Covid
• Great singers in great roles: Raina Kabaivanska on Adriana Lecoureur
• Adjusting to a post-pandemic career – Sarah Noble talks to young singers 
• The emperor and the composer: David Chandler on Napoleon Bonaparte and Giovanni Paisiello
• Career navigation for singers, part 3
• Much-loved soprano Marie McLaughlin picks her favourite recording

PLUS all the shortlists for the 2021 International Opera Awards