wed 17/09/2025

David Nice

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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

Best of 2024: Classical music concerts

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Best of 2024: Opera

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The Pirates of Penzance, English National Opera review - fresh energy in clear-sighted G&S

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Giltburg, Bournemouth SO, Wigglesworth, Portsmouth Guildhall review - seemingly effortless élan

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Rigoletto, Irish National Opera / Murrihy, Collins, NCH Dublin review - greatness everywhere

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The Dead, ANU, Landmark Productions, MoLI Dublin review - vital life, love and death in perfect equilibrium

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Kavakos, Philharmonia, Blomstedt, RFH review - a supreme valediction forbidding mourning

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Roman Rabinovich, Wigmore Hall review - full tone in four styles

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The Elixir of Love, English National Opera review - a tale of two halves

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Andrej Power, LSO, Mäkelä, Barbican review - singing, shrieking rites of darkness and light

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The Tales of Hoffmann, Royal Opera review - three-headed monster feels baggier than ever

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Fauré Centenary Concert 5, Wigmore Hall review - a final flight

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Fauré Centenary Concert 1, Wigmore Hall review - Isserlis and friends soar

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theartsdesk at Wexford Festival Opera - let's make three operas

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The Wild Duck, The Norwegian Ibsen Company, Coronet Theatre review - slow burn, devastating climax

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The Turn of the Screw, English National Opera review - Jamesian ambiguities chillingly preserved

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latest in today

'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages... ...
The Producers, Garrick Theatre review - Ve haf vays of makin...

Unexpectedly, there’s a sly reference to James Joyce’s Ulysses interpolated into Act One (in case we hadn’t caught the not...

Appl, Levickis, Wigmore Hall review - fun to the fore in cab...

Concerts at the Wigmore Hall offer many types of pleasure, but not...

Album: The Divine Comedy - Rainy Sunday Afternoon

Neil Hannon has been recording and touring as the Divine Comedy since 1989 and has tried a fair few flavours along the way, from chamber pop to...

Lammermuir Festival 2025, Part 2 review - from the soaringly...

My colleague Boyd Tonkin visited the Lammermuir Festival for the first time this year. His eyes and ears have been opened to its treasures, but...

Frances Wilson: Electric Spark - The Enigma of Muriel Spark...

How do you tell the story of a person’s mind? In the preface to Electric Spark: The Enigma of Muriel Spark, published this year by...

Blu-ray: The Sons of Great Bear

Westerns had long been popular with German cinema audiences, some of the most successful being early 1960s West German adaptations of novels by...

Spinal Tap II: The End Continues review - comedy rock band f...

That difficult second documentary – or if you will, “rockumentary” – seems to have been especially challenging for...

Tosca, Welsh National Opera review - a great company reduced...

So it’s come to this: WNO’s autumn season reduced to two operas, a Tosca borrowed from Opera North and a revival of their own Candide...

Not Your Superwoman, Bush Theatre review - powerful tribute...

The Bush is likely to continue its fine recent run of hit plays, with this funny, poignant, culturally authentic and beautifully acted two-hander...