Alexandra Coghlan
@alexandracoghlan.bsky.social
Classical music journalist. Author, Carols From King's, Ebury, 2016.
The I Paper asked me to get opinion-y to mark the anniversary of Les Mis: inews.co.uk/culture/arts...
I'm a classical music critic - Les Mis is as good as most great operas
I may be cancelled for saying so, but the West End's longest running musical, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year, would make Puccini proud
inews.co.uk
November 17, 2025 at 8:14 AM
The I Paper asked me to get opinion-y to mark the anniversary of Les Mis: inews.co.uk/culture/arts...
Some thoughts on Katie Mitchell's operatic farewell - the Royal Opera's Makropulos Case: www.oper-magazin.de/kritiken/auf...
Die Sache Makropulos, Royal Opera House | OPER!
Um Endlosigkeit geht es in Janáčeks Die Sache Makropulos, und darum, ein Ende machen zu können. Das tut auch Regisseurin Katie Mitchell, die sich mit dieser Inszenierung in Covent Garden von der Opern...
www.oper-magazin.de
November 13, 2025 at 10:59 AM
Some thoughts on Katie Mitchell's operatic farewell - the Royal Opera's Makropulos Case: www.oper-magazin.de/kritiken/auf...
Any Glyndebourne Members at the Open Day tomorrow (8 Nov) do consider coming along to my lecture on The Birth of Opera. There will be naughty aristocrats, musicological scandals, bags of Monteverdi, and a little help from my friends Sarah Lenton and Martyn Bennett
November 7, 2025 at 11:59 AM
Any Glyndebourne Members at the Open Day tomorrow (8 Nov) do consider coming along to my lecture on The Birth of Opera. There will be naughty aristocrats, musicological scandals, bags of Monteverdi, and a little help from my friends Sarah Lenton and Martyn Bennett
When I think about what contemporary opera can and should be - and whether "contemporary popular opera" could ever be a thing, I always think of Dead Man Walking: inews.co.uk/culture/arts...
Dead Man Walking is modern opera at its finest - and it's cheaper than the West End
The story of a nun's friendship with a death row murderer was long overdue a UK run, and ENO are just right for the job
inews.co.uk
November 3, 2025 at 10:12 AM
When I think about what contemporary opera can and should be - and whether "contemporary popular opera" could ever be a thing, I always think of Dead Man Walking: inews.co.uk/culture/arts...
How do you present Bach’s cantatas in a way that honours their original Lutheran context without making a contemporary audience sit through an hour-long sermon in a cold church? The OAE's Bach, The Universe & Everything is back: www.thetablet.co.uk/arts/celesti...
October 19, 2025 at 11:27 AM
How do you present Bach’s cantatas in a way that honours their original Lutheran context without making a contemporary audience sit through an hour-long sermon in a cold church? The OAE's Bach, The Universe & Everything is back: www.thetablet.co.uk/arts/celesti...
What does English National Opera's
Albert Herring tell us about the company's future, its challenges and ambitions? Some thoughts on this cracking show for the I Paper:
inews.co.uk/culture/arts...
Albert Herring tell us about the company's future, its challenges and ambitions? Some thoughts on this cracking show for the I Paper:
inews.co.uk/culture/arts...
ENO takes a risk with its first Manchester show – but it pays off
Britten's Albert Herring is a bold choice to open their new chapter, but this cracker of a show proves the relocation might just come off
inews.co.uk
October 14, 2025 at 1:10 PM
What does English National Opera's
Albert Herring tell us about the company's future, its challenges and ambitions? Some thoughts on this cracking show for the I Paper:
inews.co.uk/culture/arts...
Albert Herring tell us about the company's future, its challenges and ambitions? Some thoughts on this cracking show for the I Paper:
inews.co.uk/culture/arts...
Reposted by Alexandra Coghlan
I too have read this book for review. V interesting to see @alexandracoghlan.bsky.social’s take on it - lots we agree on. My review out on @theartsdesk.bsky.social shortly
Robin Holloway's Music's Odyssey is certainly an epic. I took the journey and lived to tell the tale
@spectator www.spectator.co.uk/article/robi...
@spectator www.spectator.co.uk/article/robi...
Robin Holloway lambasts some of our most beloved composers
Irreverent, outspoken and unfailingly opinionated, with knowledge as broad as his vocabulary, Robin Holloway is exactly the person you’d want to sit next to at a concert. The warmest of interval chard...
www.spectator.co.uk
October 9, 2025 at 8:19 AM
I too have read this book for review. V interesting to see @alexandracoghlan.bsky.social’s take on it - lots we agree on. My review out on @theartsdesk.bsky.social shortly
Robin Holloway's Music's Odyssey is certainly an epic. I took the journey and lived to tell the tale
@spectator www.spectator.co.uk/article/robi...
@spectator www.spectator.co.uk/article/robi...
Robin Holloway lambasts some of our most beloved composers
Irreverent, outspoken and unfailingly opinionated, with knowledge as broad as his vocabulary, Robin Holloway is exactly the person you’d want to sit next to at a concert. The warmest of interval chard...
www.spectator.co.uk
October 9, 2025 at 8:04 AM
Robin Holloway's Music's Odyssey is certainly an epic. I took the journey and lived to tell the tale
@spectator www.spectator.co.uk/article/robi...
@spectator www.spectator.co.uk/article/robi...
Reposted by Alexandra Coghlan
'Much more fun than a Classical biopera might sound' ★★★★ GIUSTINO #LinburyTheatre @royaloperahouse.bsky.social - Gods, mortals and monsters do battle in #Handel's charming drama - @alexandracoghlan.bsky.social enjoys a stylish account of a slight opera theartsdesk.com/opera/giusti...
Giustino, Linbury Theatre review - a stylish account of a slight opera
It’s a good year to be Handel-lover. No sooner have summer runs of Rodelinda (Garsington) and Saul (Glyndebourne) finished than we’re into autumn and Opera North’s Susanna, Giustino at the Royal Opera...
theartsdesk.com
October 8, 2025 at 8:39 AM
'Much more fun than a Classical biopera might sound' ★★★★ GIUSTINO #LinburyTheatre @royaloperahouse.bsky.social - Gods, mortals and monsters do battle in #Handel's charming drama - @alexandracoghlan.bsky.social enjoys a stylish account of a slight opera theartsdesk.com/opera/giusti...
Tenderness and intimacy from @etopera.bsky.social new Rape of Lucretia: www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/the-...
The Rape of Lucretia: intimate and tender
Read our review of The Rape of Lucretia: Robin Norton-Hale’s new production for English Touring Opera pulls the audience close
www.thestage.co.uk
October 6, 2025 at 1:14 PM
Tenderness and intimacy from @etopera.bsky.social new Rape of Lucretia: www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/the-...
"A fascinating experiment" - review of Bushra El-Turk's Oum: A Son's Quest for his Mother @thestage.co.uk www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/oum-...
Oum – A Son’s Quest for His Mother review at the Barbican Hall: Engrossing
Read our review of Oum – A Son’s Quest for His Mother at London's Barbican Hall. Bushra El-Turk and Wout van Tongeren’s opera is never less than engrossing
www.thestage.co.uk
October 3, 2025 at 12:30 PM
"A fascinating experiment" - review of Bushra El-Turk's Oum: A Son's Quest for his Mother @thestage.co.uk www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/oum-...
Ahead of the Barbican's Arvo Part at 90 exhibition, I explored the blanched sonic world of Estonia's greatest living composer: www.thetablet.co.uk/arts/arvo-pa...
Arvo Pärt at 90 - The Tablet
Who is the world’s most performed living composer? According to statistics, the answer is John Williams: classical music’s commercial king of Hollywood. No
www.thetablet.co.uk
October 2, 2025 at 11:28 AM
Ahead of the Barbican's Arvo Part at 90 exhibition, I explored the blanched sonic world of Estonia's greatest living composer: www.thetablet.co.uk/arts/arvo-pa...
Is it time to stop worrying and learn to love Verdi's operatic bomb? I enjoyed a third visit to Stefan Herheim's Vepres Siciliennes @royaloperahouse.bsky.social
gramophone.co.uk/opera-now/re...
gramophone.co.uk/opera-now/re...
Verdi: Les Vepres Siciliennes at Royal Opera | Live Review
It's all undeniably gorgeous – and, if you can hold on to the slippery double-narrative –compelling
gramophone.co.uk
September 23, 2025 at 7:49 AM
Is it time to stop worrying and learn to love Verdi's operatic bomb? I enjoyed a third visit to Stefan Herheim's Vepres Siciliennes @royaloperahouse.bsky.social
gramophone.co.uk/opera-now/re...
gramophone.co.uk/opera-now/re...
It was a gift to have a reason to spend far too much time listening to the many - and very varied - recordings of Jean Richafort's ravishing Requiem
for Gramophone magazine - try this and marvel: open.spotify.com/track/2KTkXA...
www.gramophone.co.uk/features/art...
for Gramophone magazine - try this and marvel: open.spotify.com/track/2KTkXA...
www.gramophone.co.uk/features/art...
Requiem in memoriam Josquin Desprez: I. Introitus - Requiem aeternam
open.spotify.com
September 22, 2025 at 11:03 AM
It was a gift to have a reason to spend far too much time listening to the many - and very varied - recordings of Jean Richafort's ravishing Requiem
for Gramophone magazine - try this and marvel: open.spotify.com/track/2KTkXA...
www.gramophone.co.uk/features/art...
for Gramophone magazine - try this and marvel: open.spotify.com/track/2KTkXA...
www.gramophone.co.uk/features/art...
The Royal Opera's new Tosca delivers just enough shock without scaring the horses: inews.co.uk/culture/arts...
'Putin's Diva' sparked protests - but she brought star-power to Tosca
The first new staging for almost 20 years brings the shock-factor back to Puccini's opera
inews.co.uk
September 12, 2025 at 1:21 PM
The Royal Opera's new Tosca delivers just enough shock without scaring the horses: inews.co.uk/culture/arts...
Is it a musical or an opera? Grimeborn's Sense & Sensibility: The Musical should pick a lane: inews.co.uk/culture/arts...
Grimeborn's Sense and Sensibility is edgy yet unmemorable
This opera-musical at the Arcola Theatre in East London has a nifty DIY quality, but fails to capitalise on its strengths
inews.co.uk
August 20, 2025 at 10:48 AM
Is it a musical or an opera? Grimeborn's Sense & Sensibility: The Musical should pick a lane: inews.co.uk/culture/arts...
An opera company makes its London debut: review of Wild Arts' sober Eugene Onegin & a giddy Elisir d'amore at Opera Holland Park: gramophone.co.uk/opera-now/re...
Wild Arts Opera at Opera Holland Park | Live Review
The Essex-based company presents Eugene Onegin and The Elixir of Love
gramophone.co.uk
August 20, 2025 at 8:10 AM
An opera company makes its London debut: review of Wild Arts' sober Eugene Onegin & a giddy Elisir d'amore at Opera Holland Park: gramophone.co.uk/opera-now/re...
Loved the music, hated the hall - pace purists, but it's time for some inauthentic solutions to early music at the Proms...
★★★★ #BBCProms #LeConcertSpirituel #HerveNiquet - Monumental works don't quite make for monumental sounds in @royalalberthall.bsky.social - @alexandracoghlan.bsky.social is struck by super-sized polyphonic rarities & impressed by monumental effort in performance www.theartsdesk.com/classical-mu...
BBC Proms: Le Concert Spirituel, Niquet review - super-sized polyphonic rarities
There’s a Proms paradox that’s familiar to Early Music fans. Some works are too challenging – too big, too expensive, too uncommercial, too obscure – to do anywhere else. The trouble is, the Royal Alb...
www.theartsdesk.com
August 18, 2025 at 8:41 AM
Loved the music, hated the hall - pace purists, but it's time for some inauthentic solutions to early music at the Proms...
Reposted by Alexandra Coghlan
This new Hyperion album contains a piece by someone new to me, a man with the BEST FRENCH COMPOSER NAME EVER. Does anyone know anything about Didier-Gaston de l'Aubergine? #classicalmusic #cello #frenchcomposers
August 8, 2025 at 7:55 AM
This new Hyperion album contains a piece by someone new to me, a man with the BEST FRENCH COMPOSER NAME EVER. Does anyone know anything about Didier-Gaston de l'Aubergine? #classicalmusic #cello #frenchcomposers
Good to be going head to head with @larkingrumple.bsky.social again in Gramophone - this time about a classic recording of Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmelites:
August 8, 2025 at 8:40 AM
Good to be going head to head with @larkingrumple.bsky.social again in Gramophone - this time about a classic recording of Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmelites:
**** Some seriously classy playing from Kantorow and a Scottish Chamber Orchestra performing like a crack baroque band for Emelyanychev: BBC Proms review @theipaper.com inews.co.uk/culture/arts...
Alexandre Kantorow is superb - but Maxim Emelyanychev was the star
Emelyanychev brought this broad and delicate performance of Betthoven's Fifth together
inews.co.uk
July 27, 2025 at 9:42 AM
**** Some seriously classy playing from Kantorow and a Scottish Chamber Orchestra performing like a crack baroque band for Emelyanychev: BBC Proms review @theipaper.com inews.co.uk/culture/arts...
Very much enjoyed my first trip to West Green Opera www.gramophone.co.uk/opera-now/re...
Verdi: Macbeth at West Green Opera | Live Review
The real musical thrills here are all on the stage. Male and female choruses set the tone: zingy, strongly projected and articulated – serious talent-in-waiting
www.gramophone.co.uk
July 23, 2025 at 4:37 PM
Very much enjoyed my first trip to West Green Opera www.gramophone.co.uk/opera-now/re...
First visit to @westgreenopera_ last night - what a magical garden and place. Bonus points for three-man duck security team shaking down picnickers for crumbs…
July 20, 2025 at 8:32 AM
First visit to @westgreenopera_ last night - what a magical garden and place. Bonus points for three-man duck security team shaking down picnickers for crumbs…
Plenty of laughs and some cracking orchestral playing in this rewrite of Mozart’s The Impresario at Buxton Festival. Debut review from me @TheStage
www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/the-...
www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/the-...
The Impresario review at Buxton Opera House: Multilayered
Read our review of The Impresario at Buxton Opera House. Directed by Christopher Gillett, a contemporary rewrite gives Mozart's operatic oddity new comic zest
www.thestage.co.uk
July 18, 2025 at 11:15 AM
Plenty of laughs and some cracking orchestral playing in this rewrite of Mozart’s The Impresario at Buxton Festival. Debut review from me @TheStage
www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/the-...
www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/the-...
My top picks from a fab BBC Proms 2026 season for @thetablet.bsky.social www.thetablet.co.uk/arts/the-pro...
July 11, 2025 at 8:55 AM
My top picks from a fab BBC Proms 2026 season for @thetablet.bsky.social www.thetablet.co.uk/arts/the-pro...