Opera

Compared with Italy or Germany, Britain is not a very operatic country. But this is changing.

Covent Garden is a superb opera house, on a par with the finest in the world. And there is now more opera in the provinces.

It was a vicious circle: the standard works are in Italian, German and French, and people stayed away because they did not understand the words. In addition, British composers have tended not to write operas for lack of a public.

But now performances at the English National Opera, in London, are always in English translation. The people who run it are gradually breaking the vicious circle by generating a new public. There is also a Welsh National Opera, a Scottish Opera, and a new company in Leeds. They all tour the provinces.

Meanwhile, it is more and more difficult to get tickets for Covent Garden. British and foreign opera-lovers snap them up in order to hear internationally famous singers, in the standard repertoire and in modern works by composers such as Tippet and Britten.