fri 23/05/2025

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 New Electric Ballroom, Gate Theatre, Dublin review - fantasy and memory hauntingly interwoven

Read more...

Der Rosenkavalier, Irish National Opera review - world-class delight

Read more...

The Walworth Farce, Southwark Playhouse Elephant review - dysfunctional Irish myth-making

Read more...

Rusalka, Royal Opera review - ravishing sounds, torpid staging

Read more...

The Rhinegold, English National Opera review - tacky, edgy, brilliant

Read more...

Jerusalem Quartet, Leonskaja, Wigmore Hall review - freedom and rigour in perfect balance

Read more...

Boris Giltburg, Wigmore Hall review - tonal beauty trumps subjective romantics

Read more...

LSO, Pappano, Barbican review - exhilarating, hilarious mock-heroics

Read more...

Dmitri Alexeev, Leighton House review - shadows and light from a master pianist

Read more...

DVD: Babylon Berlin, Season Four

Read more...

Philharmonia, Hrůša, RFH review - total brilliance in Bartók, Dvořák and Strauss

Read more...

Tannhäuser, Royal Opera review - true goodness triumphs in the end

Read more...

Leonskaja, Staatskapelle Streichquartett, Wigmore Hall / Secret Byrd, St Martin-in-the-Fields review - genuine versus theatrical

Read more...

Jansen, LSO, Noseda, Barbican review - hearts of darkness

Read more...

Castalian String Quartet, Wigmore Hall review - genius in works and performance

Read more...

Lowe, The Mozartists, Page, Wigmore Hall - an education, not quite a triumph

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...

The Phoenician Scheme review - further adventures in the idi...

It’s not what he says, it’s the way he says it. Few filmmakers have bent the term “auteur” to their own ends more boldly than...

Album: Ammar 808 - Club Tounsi

Ammar 808 is the high octane vehicle for the Tunisian-born producer Sofyann Ben Youssef, now based in Denmark. His first album Maghreb United...

Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning review - can this...

Whether it is or isn’t the final Mission: Impossible film, there’s a distinct fin-de-siècle feel about this eighth instalment, and not...

Code of Silence, ITVX review - inventively presented reality...

In the guided tour of Britain’s cathedral cities that is the primetime TV...

The Crucible, Shakespeare's Globe review - stirring acc...

A society ruled by hysteria. Lurid lies that carry more currency than reality. There’s no shortage of reasons that...

Pixies, O2 Academy, Birmingham review - indie veterans pack...

Pixies might just be the ultimate Radio 6 Dad band. They’ve been around (on-and-off) for around 40 years; they’ve got a fine back catalogue of...

Album: Sports Team - Boys These Days

How do you solve a problem like Sports Team? Taking them at face value, they’re a living metaphor for the slow music biz relegation of the working...

Pygmalion, Early Opera Company, Curnyn, Middle Temple Hall r...

With French baroque opera all but banished from the UK’s major...

Album: Stereolab - Instant Holograms on Metal Film

Stereolab always walked a knife edge between deadly serious and dead silly. Their sound was constructed around the sort of reference points –...