sun 06/04/2025

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

Bartlett, National Symphony Orchestra, Weilerstein, National Concert Hall, Dublin review - edgy darkness, blazing light and high camp

Read more...

Castalian String Quartet, Wigmore Hall review - late Britten keeps equally demanding company

Read more...

LPO, Jurowski, RFH / LSO, BBC Singers, Rattle, Barbican review - spiderwebs, sublimity and a powerful speech

Read more...

Blue, English National Opera review - the company’s boldest vindication yet?

Read more...

Innocence, Royal Opera review - timely, layered drama with almost incidental music

Read more...

National Youth Orchestra, Gourlay, RFH review - non-stop jamboree at the highest level

Read more...

Life is a Dream, Cheek by Jowl, Barbican Theatre review - savouring the Spanish of a singular masterpiece

Read more...

Belcea Quartet, Chamayou, Wigmore Hall review - romantic winged beast soars over neobaroque chameleon

Read more...

Tenebrae, Short, St John’s Smith Square review - Bach and MacMillan soulfully joined, until the end

Read more...

Messiah, Irish Baroque Orchestra, Whelan, Wigmore Hall review - wonderful, easy, light and dark in perfect poise

Read more...

Williams, Dunedin Consort, Truscott, Wigmore Hall review - star soprano, total teamwork

Read more...

The Dead City, English National Opera review - strong dream world, weak love story

Read more...

Fröst, Philharmonia, Lazarova, Kuusisto, Southbank Centre review - congenial new works complemented by live-wire classics

Read more...

Turandot, Royal Opera review - spectacle and sound wow in this significant revival

Read more...

Dance of Death, National Theatre of Norway, Coronet Theatre review - straight for the jugular

Read more...

Mahler’s Third Symphony, Philharmonia, Paavo Järvi, RFH review - phosphorescent glow, depths only glimpsed

Read more...

Pages

latest in today

Help to give theartsdesk a future!

It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.

It followed some...

Music Reissues Weekly: Ibex Band - Stereo Instrumental Music

Stereo Instrumental Music was recorded in July 1976 and originally issued only on cassette. The release was organised by...

Blu-ray: Yojimbo / Sanjuro

Akira Kurosawa described his 1961 hit Yojimbo as a tale of “rivalry on both sides, and both sides are equally bad… we are weakly caught...

Levit, Sternath, Wigmore Hall review - pushing the boundarie...

Igor Levit is a master of the unorthodox marathon, one he was happy to share last night with 24-year-old Austrian Lukas Sternath, his student in...

Rhinoceros, Almeida Theatre review - joyously absurd and abs...

Is the theatre of the absurd dead? In today’s world, when cruel and crazy events happen almost daily, the idea that you can satirize daily life by...

Mr Burton review - modest film about the birth of an extraor...

Many know that the actor Richard Burton began life as a miner’s son called Richard Jenkins. Not so many are aware of the reason he...

Album: The Waterboys - Life, Death and Dennis Hopper

Mike Scott is The Waterboys. Launched by wide-eyed 1980s folk-...

Restless review - curse of the noisy neighbours

Horror comes in many forms. In writer-director Jed Hart’s...

MobLand, Paramount+ review - more guns, goons and gangsters...

A year ago Guy Ritchie brought us the Netflix series The Gentlemen, and now here he is on Paramount+ with his latest romp through the...