sun 03/08/2025

David Nice

David Nice's picture
Bio
The classical music and opera editor of theartsdesk, David writes, lectures and broadcasts on music. A former music critic for The Guardian and The Sunday Correspondent, he has made regular appearances on BBC Radio 3, not least in the long-running series Building a Library. He has written short studies on Elgar, Richard Strauss, Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky and the history of opera, and is currently working on the second volume of his Prokofiev biography for Yale University Press. He runs two Zoom lecture series, Opera in Depth on Mondays and a symphonies course on Thursdays.

Articles By David Nice

Gazzaniga's Don Giovanni, Royal College of Music review - a modest one-acter overloaded

Read more...

Maestro review - the infinite variety of Leonard Bernstein

Read more...

Selaocoe, Schimpelsberger, LSO, Ward, Barbican review - force of nature crowns dance jamboree

Read more...

Jephtha, Royal Opera review - uncomfortable sacrifice oratorio not seismic enough

Read more...

theartsdesk at Wexford Festival Opera - four operas and a recital in one crazy day

Read more...

L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato, Monteverdi Choir, EBS, Sousa, St Martin-in-the-Fields review - Handel at his most magical

Read more...

Lugansky, RPO, Petrenko, RFH review - so sure in all their ways

Read more...

Paris Chapters, Barbier Serrano, Finegan, Ling, Bloomsbury Festival review - beguiling journey around Irishmen abroad

Read more...

Un ballo in maschera, Chelsea Opera Group, Cadogan Hall review - Italianate vitality, if not much finesse

Read more...

Rice, Ridout, Drake / A Human Document, Oxford International Song Festival review - a cornucopia of song, speech and vision

Read more...

Iolanthe, English National Opera review - still gorgeous but ever so slightly less funny than before

Read more...

Kopatchinskaja, LSO, Pappano, Barbican review - dancing on the volcano

Read more...

Skride, National Symphony Orchestra, Matheuz, National Concert Hall, Dublin - musical philosophies soar

Read more...

Faust, Irish National Opera review - world-class singing turns the musical-dramatic screw

Read more...

Fung, RPO, Schwarz, Cadogan Hall review - high style from new cellist and conductor on the block

Read more...

Mad Rush, Carol Williams, RFH review - a rainbow of organ colours

Read more...

Pages

latest in today

'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages... ...
Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews: I'm Ready To Talk Now /...

I’m Ready to Talk Now, Traverse Theatre ...

Music Reissues Weekly: Chip Shop Pop - The Sound of Denmark...

One of the more interesting tracks on Paul Weller’s fascinating new cover versions album Find El Dorado is his interpretation of “When...

theartsdesk at the Three Choirs Festival - Passion in the Ca...

“Powerful, Timeless, Inspiring” it says on the front cover of the programme-book for this year’s supposedly 297th Three Choirs Festival at...

Natalia Ginzburg: The City and the House review - a dying ar...

Many readers and writers think of epistolary novels as old-fashioned, just as letter writing itself can seem a bit quaint nowadays. The genre...

Album: Mansur Brown - Rihla

I like to think I’m open to most things, but even so I never thought that I’d be getting an education in prog metal in the summer of 2025. Let...

BBC Proms: Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, Kaljuste rev...

Arvo Pärt was into his 40s before he made had his Big Musical Idea: simplicity. He has spent the subsequent half-century pursuing this ideal,...

Top Hat, Chichester Festival Theatre review - top spectacle...

After 76 years, you’d have thought they could’ve come up with a better story! Okay, that’s a cheap jibe and, given the elusive...

Late Shift review - life and death in an understaffed Swiss...

Floria (the superb Leonie Benesch: The Crown; The Teachers’ Lounge; September 5) is a nurse, working the severely understaffed...

Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews: Alright Sunshine / K Mak at t...

Alright Sunshine, Pleasance Dome ...