tue 29/04/2025

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

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

Read more...

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

Read more...

Trouble in Tahiti/A Quiet Place, Linbury Theatre review - top cast plays unhappy families

Read more...

Nobodaddy, Teaċ Daṁsa, Dublin Theatre Festival review - supernatural song and dance odyssey

Read more...

Béatrice et Bénédict, Irish National Opera, National Concert Hall, Dublin review - sung and spoken triumph

Read more...

Elisabeth Leonskaja, Wigmore Hall review - a universe of sound and emotion in Schubert’s last three sonatas

Read more...

Andsnes, London Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra, Gardner, RFH review - total clarity in classic-romantic and prophetic Rachmaninov

Read more...

Suor Angelica, English National Opera review - isolated one-acter lacks emotional inscaping

Read more...

Eugene Onegin, Royal Opera review - the heart left cold

Read more...

Pavel Kolesnikov, Wigmore Hall review - unpredictable magic

Read more...

theartsdesk in Bradford - Leeds International Piano Competition 2024 finalists shine in St George's Hall

Read more...

Beethoven Sonata Cycle 1, Boris Giltburg, Wigmore Hall review - running the gamut

Read more...

LSO, Pappano, Barbican review - singular adventures for a new era

Read more...

Prom 68, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Garsington Opera review - eerie beauty sometimes faintly glittering

Read more...

Proms 63-65, Choral Day review - from Harris to Handel/Mozart via Alabama, with love

Read more...

Prom 62, Mahler's Sixth Symphony, Bavarian RSO, Rattle review - sound over momentum

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...

Dealer's Choice, Donmar Warehouse review - fresh take o...

Patrick Marber’s powerful debut about gambling men is 30 years old, born as the Eighties entrepreneurial boom was starting to sour but...

Much Ado About Nothing, RSC, Stratford - Messina FC scores o...

Fragile egos abound. An older person (usually a man) has to bring the best out of the stars, but mustn’t neglect the team ethic....

Zsuzsanna Gahse: Mountainish review - seeking refuge

Mountainish by Zsuzsanna Gahse is a collection of 515 notes, each contributing to an expansive kaleidoscope of mountain encounters....

DVD/Blu-ray: All We Imagine as Light

All We Imagine as Light focuses on the lives of three women in contemporary...

Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Isata Kanneh-Mason, Wigmore Hall review...

I came to Isata and Sheku Kanneh-Mason’s Wigmore Hall recital on Saturday armed with a certain degree of scepticism. Not about the siblings’...

Simon Boccanegra, Opera North review - ‘dramatic staging’ pr...

Opera North have recently pioneered a way of presenting some big works which they call “dramatic concert stagings”, performing in concert halls as...

Mahler 8, LPO, Gardner, RFH review - lights on high

Transcendence is everywhere in Mahler’s most ambitious symphony, from the flaming opening hymn to the upper reaches in the epic setting of Goethe’...

Album: Car Seat Headrest - The Scholars

Following a tradition that reaches back to the The Who’s Tommy, bands and musicians with serious artistic ambition have created rock...

Music Reissues Weekly: The Hamburg Repertoire

The blurb on the front of the double-CD set The Hamburg Repertoire says it collects “The original recordings of songs...