Nicholas Kenyon

Productions like the Welsh National Opera's startling staging of Britten's Death In Venice are under threat - Johan Persson

The new 115-page document on funding opera and music theatre proves the organisation has lost its way

Stephanie Hockley, Patrycja Kujawska and Robyn Sinclair in Duke Bluebeard's Castle - Steve Tanner Oops! Something went wrong.

The Spanish summer heat beats down under a battery of lights, while the scene revolves slowly around the police station.

The Festival’s innovative production – led by three world-class singers – is underpinned by an unchanging commitment to musical excellence

Doom and gloom in 14th-century Genoa, painted in monochromatic colours by a composer whose resulting opera was a total failure: this is hardly obvious material for a celebration.

As Saudi Arabia continues its quest to establish itself as a cultural force on the world stage, investing significantly in its cultural heritage, it has turned to opera as a way forward.

The Edinburgh International Festival is taking opera seriously this summer, and among its imports will be this riveting, moving reinvention of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro by the Komische Oper from Berlin.

The anti-opera lobby at Arts Council England must be rubbing its hands with glee: the draconian 35 per cent cut they imposed on their funding for Welsh National Opera has been joined by an 11.8 per cent cut in home-based funding from the Welsh Arts Council. The result has been to throw the company into a financial crisis, and they have now announced reducing weeks of touring in the 2024-25 season, removing periods in Llandudno and Bristol, undercutting the stated (but always unconvincing) argument that rebalanced funding was to enable more work out of London. The reach of their work is now reduced, and the future of the company is at stake.

Cheating at the Olympics is not the most inspiring subject for an opera to be performed just before our Paris games this July.