fri 07/02/2025

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

theartsdesk in Treviso - cultural patronage, Italian style

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Noye's Fludde, ENO/Theatre Royal Stratford East review - two-dimensional music theatre

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BBC Cardiff Singer of the World 2019 Final, BBC Four review - stage confidence, supportive set-up

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The Damned, Comédie-Française, Barbican review - slow-burn horrors in devastating images

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theartsdesk in Svalbard: cultural excellence at the top of the world

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Boris Godunov, Royal Opera review - cool and surgical, with periodic chills

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Hansel and Gretel, ENO, Regent's Park Open Air Theatre review - into the broomstick woods

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Cate Haste: Passionate Spirit - The Life of Alma Mahler review - a racy life pacily narrated

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Kozhukhin, RPO, Petrenko, RFH review - more cultured than electrifying

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Manon Lescaut, Opera Holland Park review - attempt to empower commodified woman falls flat

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Bauci e Filemone/Orfeo, Classical Opera, QEH review - a star Orpheus is born

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theartsdesk in Gothenburg: concert-hall storytelling rivets at the Point Music Festival

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The Merry Wives of Windsor, Shakespeare's Globe review - a gallimaufry of acting styles

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Phaedra, Linbury Theatre review - from confusing passion to blazing afterlife

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theartsdesk in Tallinn and Tartu: Estonian Music Days go global

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LSO, Rattle, Barbican review - inner magic eventually joins outward mastery

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

It followed some...

Elektra, Duke of York's Theatre review - Brie Larson...

We live in tragic times given over to cataclysmic events that require outsized emotions in return. That may be one reason to account for the...

Widmann, LSO, Pappano, Barbican review - razor-sharp attack...

Perhaps all great music counterpoints and comments on the times, but Antonio Pappano and the London Symphony Orchestra have been searingly...

Bring Them Down review - ramming it home in the west of Irel...

“You know what they say: where there’s livestock, there’s dead stock,” says Jack (a brilliant Barry Keoghan). Never a truer word. There’s an awful...

Album: Rats on Rafts - Deep Below

Deep Below’s first track is titled “Hibernation.” “A winter breeze blows through my mind,” intones a colourless, dispirited male voice....

First Person: writer Lauren Mooney on bringing bodies togeth...

It started with a Guardian long-read. I’m ashamed to admit it since so many shows could say the same, but that was the beginning.

It was the...

The Marriage of Figaro, English National Opera review - long...

Who’s in and who’s not – on the secret, the joke, the relationship, the family, the club? That’s the fulcrum of Joe Hill-Gibbins’ ingeniously...

September 5 review - gripping real-life thriller

There’s a common understanding about journalists, especially ones at the top of their game, that they’re flying by the seat of their pants –...

Oedipus, Old Vic review - disappointing leads in a productio...

The opening scene of the Old Vic’s Oedipus is dominated by a giant backdrop of a skull-like face, eyes shut and rock-like. It...

Album: Hifi Sean & David McAlmont - Twilight

It was only six months ago that Hifi Sean and David McAlmont released their Daylight album. A fine disc of summery dance pop that was...