THE MAGAZINE
From Paris with Love: The Annual Performance of the Paris Opera Ballet School at the Palais Garnier
Some opera house are so legendary, they have entered popular culture. The Palais Garnier in Paris is one of them. Find out some surprising facts about this iconic opera house and join our correspondent at the Paris Opera Ballet School’s triumphant annual school performance.
From London with Love: The Southbank Centre - Culture as a Democratic Social Good
Wondering around a jungle of concrete on a cold and drizzly spring day may not be everyone’s idea of fun. But London’s Southbank Centre is a place where you can experience art and culture as a democratic social good for everyone to access. Read on and plan your visit!
Can and Should Contemporary Operas Engage With Controversial Topics?
With Innocence, Kaija Saariaho brings one of the most unsettling realities of contemporary life to the operatic stage. The result is a work that asks whether opera should comfort audiences, or confront them. Read on for more.
The Remarkable Escape of Tracey Emin
From Margate’s washed-out shoreline to the centre of British contemporary art, Tracey Emin transformed autobiography into artistic defiance. Her work remains a refusal to apologise for experience, vulnerability, or survival. To explore her oeuvre, read the full article now.
Cedar Tavern, NYC, 1950/60s: The Birth of an All-American Avant Garde
In 1950s downtown Manhattan, the Cedar Tavern became an unlikely laboratory for artistic revolution. Here, painters and composers reshaped modern art together, dissolving boundaries between sound, gesture, and chance. Read now to learn more about the birth of experimental, avant garde music in America.
Morningmaxxing: The Case for Keeping Our Mornings to Ourselves
Morning routines promise clarity, discipline, and success, but what happens when they become another performance of productivity? Another less mainstream argument emerges for reclaiming the early hours as private time. Read on for more.
From New York with Love: From the New Museum to the Whitney Museum’s Biennial 2026
In a newly reopened New Museum and the Whitney Biennial 2026, artists reconsider the body as system, memory, and landscape. Moving across downtown Manhattan, one question lingers: what does it mean to be human today? Read on to find out.
A Brief Exploration of the Fun and Weird Medieval
From jousting snails to rebellious rabbits, medieval manuscripts and cathedral carvings reveal a humorous world that challenges the myth of the Middle Ages as solemn and austere. Read on for more.
The Political Power of Opera: Ideology and Fascist Control in Mussolini’s Italy
What happens when opera becomes a political instrument? In Mussolini’s Italy, opera was transformed into a tool for spreading the ultranationalist and ethnocentric ideals of Fascism, reshaping national identity, and aligning culture with Fascist ideology. Read on for more.
Fake or Genius? Inside the High-Stakes World of Art Forgery
Some forged paintings fooled experts for decades and sold for millions. What makes a fake convincing—and why do we believe in authenticity? Read on to find out.
From London with Love: “Mayerling” - When a Crown Prince Longs for Death
Amidst the rain, a coffin is lowered into the ground. What follows are dances, desires, and death wishes, unfolding against Nicholas Georgiadis’ sumptuous designs and John Lanchbery’s arrangement of Franz Liszt’s restless music. The Royal Opera House’s Mayerling emerges as a haunting portrait of Crown Prince Rudolf’s final days–and honours choreographer Kenneth MacMillan’s genius, over three decades after his death. Read on for more.
Interview: Dayner Tafur-Díaz, Conducting Fellow, Karajan-Akademie of the Berliner Philharmoniker
Dayner Tafur-Díaz did not grow up inside Europe’s conservatory system, nor follow the usual trajectory of a musical prodigy. Now a Siemens Conductors Scholar at the Karajan-Akademie of the Berliner Philharmoniker, assisting Kirill Petrenko, he reflects on moving from Peru to Berlin, learning to conduct by accident, and discovering how orchestral sound is shaped from within one of the world’s most distinctive musical traditions. Read on for more.
AI, Art, and Adorno
Can AI make music, or only imitate it? Drawing on Theodor Adorno’s critique of standardisation, this article suggests that algorithmic composition produces structure without development—and sound without artistic transformation. Read on for more.
Arnault vs. Pinault: When Luxury Empires Compete Through Art
The competition between Bernard Arnault and François Pinault no longer unfolds only through fashion houses and auction rooms. From Paris to Venice, their museums and collections reveal a deeper struggle for cultural influence—one that shapes how contemporary art is seen, valued, and remembered. Read on for more.
What Makes Edward Hopper’s Cities So Lonely?
Hopper’s paintings do not simply depict solitude; they make us experience it. We stand across the street, in the corridor, at the window, witnessing tension, isolation, and melancholy as the lives of others unfold before us. The question, then, is not why his figures appear lonely, but why looking at them makes us feel the same. Read on to find out.
From Berlin with Love: “Nureyev” - The Price of Freedom
The Staatsballett Berlin premiere of Nureyev could not have been more timely. From the repressive force of Putin’s regime to LGBTQ rights, exile, and the price of artistic freedom, this striking “biography ballet” traces the life of Rudolf Nureyev through memory, objects, and movement, revealing how politics continues to shape the legacy of one of ballet’s most uncompromising figures.
From New York with Love: Notes from the Underground
The New York subway is more than transit. From ceramic mosaics and modernist maps to hidden bronze figures and fleeting poems, Olivia Merola traces the art of moving underground through the city’s shifting narratives. Read on for more.
We Still Care: A Case for Ballet and Opera
Timothée Chalamet’s offhand remark that “no one cares” about ballet and opera sparked outrage, but it also exposed a deeper anxiety about their survival. As funding cuts, rising ticket prices, and ageing repertoires reshape the landscape of live performance, this piece asks what is really at stake when we dismiss these art forms, and why they still matter today. Read on for more.
From Seattle Grunge to the Opera Stage: “Last Days”
Can opera sound like grunge? At the Royal Opera House, Last Days, inspired by Kurt Cobain, replaces hierarchy with collaboration, silence with tension, and tradition with experiment, asking what opera can become when new voices reshape the stage. Read on for more.
Wayne McGregor: “Infinite Bodies” - Dance, Technology and the Future of the Human Body
At Somerset House, Infinite Bodies reveals how Wayne McGregor choreographs the space between dancer and machine. Through motion capture, robotics, and immersive sound, the exhibition asks what happens when the human body begins to think alongside technology.