THE MAGAZINE
From London with Love: “Samson et Dalila”
What begins as a rain-soaked dash through London ends with one of the most memorable evenings of the season. In this City Letter, TWoA’s London reporter, Maya Stoilova, attends the Royal Opera House’s Samson et Dalila, reflecting on Saint-Saëns’ music, the cast’s magnetic performances, and the unique sense of connection that only the arts can create. Read on for more.
From Riga with Love: On Singing, Soft Power, and the Very Best Food of My Life
In Riga, music once operated as a political weapon. But it was not alone: art, too, played a part. Writing from the Latvian capital, TWoA explores how the country's art and culture have long served as instruments of resistance, continuity, and national self-definition, from the Singing Revolution to the modernist painters and contemporary artists who challenged Soviet control. Read on for a portrait of a city shaped by occupation and a meditation on art’s power to preserve identity against political erasure.
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!
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.
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.
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.
From London with Love: Is Lucian Freud Overrated?
What happens when Peggy Guggenheim sells your first paintings–and Sigmund Freud is your grandfather? Visiting Lucian Freud’s latest show at London’s National Portrait Gallery, “Drawing into Painting,” I went in curious and left underwhelmed. Read on to find out why.
From Berlin with Love: The Miraculous Return of a Cello Legend
Rain, empty seats, and a changed programme set the scene. What followed was a fragile, powerful encounter with Mischa Maisky—part concert, part reckoning with resilience, ageing, and what it means to return to music after the body almost gives in. Read on for more.
From London with Love: On Lee Miller and the End of Innocence
From Vogue photoshoots to pictures taken in Hitler’s bathtub, Lee Miller’s exhibition at Tate Britain was not what I expected. Read on to discover the erotics, travels, and violence of photography–and find out how a woman’s work defined 20th-century photography.
Letter from New York: Merry Christmas from the Queen of the Night
Join our New York correspondent on a crisp walk through Midtown Manhattan and greet Christmas with the Queen of the Night at the Metropolitan Opera.
Cambridge at Christmas: Quiet Streets, Hidden Traditions, and the Songs You Hear After Dark
Christmas in Cambridge isn’t only found in lights and market stalls—it lingers in quiet streets, late-night footsteps, and the echoes of song after dark. TWoA follows a winter wander through the city, tracing modern student rituals back to Josiah Chater’s 1840s diary and discovering how Christmas survives in the gentlest, most surprising sounds.
From Bruges with Love: Digital Surrealism in Medieval Bruges - “Dalí Cybernetics”
Bruges’s medieval streets welcome an immersive Dalí experience. Yet can a city defined by history support the next chapter of digital art? Melis Seven finds out.
From London with Love: The King of Vogue
A new exhibition is up at London’s National Portrait Gallery: Cecil Beaton’s Fashionable World. Step inside the gallery to see how Beaton went from a war photographer to set and stage designer to the King of Vogue. Crisp, direct, and slightly cynical, this is your guide to the latest happenings in London.
From New York with Love: Halloween
Halloween in New York carries its own kind of theatre—costumes, orchestras, and a city that refuses to do anything halfway. This letter moves from childhood memories to a live screening of Psycho, where Herrmann’s strings cut through the hall as sharply as Hitchcock’s edits. Read it now and enjoy some Halloween vibes from NYC.
From New York with Love: Connecting With People
Autumn shows up in New York not on the sidewalks, but in the seats of City Center, where Fall for Dance turns a single evening into a study in how people meet. TWoA follows the night from a pre-show class to the final curtain, watching dancers and audiences negotiate rhythm, effort, and each other. Read this article for a City Letter about connection in its simplest, most unguarded forms.
From Berlin with Love: Gods and Dogs
Berlin’s Festival of Lights floods the city with colour, but inside the Staatsoper the evening turns darker, sharper, and more human. In this article, TWoA follows a night with Staatsballett Berlin as Kylián’s Gods and Dogs and Crystal Pite’s Angels’ Atlas trace loneliness, community, and the uneasy politics humming beneath the surface. Read on for more.
From London with Love: The Art of the Market
Auctions, galleries, dealers—the art world’s holy trinity. But behind Bond Street’s polished façades lies a performance of sleight, spectacle, and subtle inflation. Read our newest Letter from London to discover what truly happens when masterpieces change hands.
From Istanbul with Love: Where Are You Understood?
From Beyoğlu’s streets to Anna Laudel’s galleries, Melis traces her shift from student to curator in this TWoA City Letter—and explores what it means to create, belong, and be understood.