Alexandra Wilson
@amwilson_opera
Author, arts writer, historian. Opera, classical music, cultural history. Next book: "Someone Else's Music: Opera and the British".
Available to pre-order! My new book, "Someone Else's Music: Opera and the British" traces attitudes towards opera, 1920-2020. It reveals a forgotten history of popular opera-going, which challenges the elitism stereotype. It also examines when and why that stereotype arose. /
Jugendstil house from c. 1900 in Krefeld, Germany. Photo: Katharina Barth
Am guessing that those audiences rejected C19th operas with problematic storylines, & voted instead for community operas dealing with environmental and social issues relevant to their day-to-day lives. But then got overruled by Gatekeepers and made to watch Verdi anyway. Right?
This is an interesting revival of an older practice. In the interwar years, touring opera companies would regularly invite audience members to vote on the works they would like to see performed in the next season.
One reason why so many people despair is because we’ve removed beauty from public life. We could have beautiful stations, beautiful trains. We could make this world so lovely.
I hate how old train stations were cathedrals to prosperity and airports now are just the dingy bus stations of the sky
To be published 22 January 2026, six months from today... A Shellshocked Nation: Britain between the Wars.
Fake or Fortune is back tonight. bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00…
Fellow Puccini fans, you MUST see this. Runs until 9 August. Article about it from me coming soon.
⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘Music, mischief and silky wit’ The Times ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘Do not miss this show – it is a masterpiece’ Spy in the Stalls ➡️ That Bastard, Puccini! plays in Park200 until Sat 9 Aug 🔗 Tickets from £22.50: ow.ly/7MnK50Wrlp3 📽️ Ben Hewis Videography
Good morning! This week's theme is London Rain 🌧 ----- 'Kensington Gore' (1921) by Arthur Temple Felix Clay (Kensington Central Library)
Delete, delete, delete. One shouldn't have to, for expressing an anodyne point of view (which, incidentally, revealed nothing of my own views on the political matter in hand) but some people on here are unhinged, threatening, and determined to twist words and act in bad faith.
God, I thought all the irate trolls who add 2+2 and make 5 had decamped to Bluesky...
Thought for the day: that presentist type of attitude which lacks all historical imagination, and assumes the past resembles the present (or else is of no interest) is amongst the most arrogant of all positions in academia. Inability to comprehend historical difference.
Still looking for a regular column reviewing vegetarian options in restaurants. Speciality: shaming places that think vegetarian = vegan and only offer proteinless vegetable "steaks".
Increasingly see ‘Cauliflower’ offered as a main course in restaurants. Not sure it reflects well on the state of the nation…
Fascinating programme note, as always, by the indefatigable @amwilson_opera
One wonders if the citizens of London had been given a vote, which vision of contemporary London we would have voted for. (For comparative purposes, the neighbourhood on the right has more density (homes per sq. m.) than the neighbourhood on the left.)
Dresden. Every building pictured dates from the last twenty years, the result of a 2002 municipal referendum in which the city decisively voted in favour of reconstructing its historic centre.