"I like to remember things my own way... not necessarily the way they happened". With this key line the orchestra swells to a small crescendo, and following a subtle beginning this audacious English National Opera production suddenly feels, well, operatic. Olga Neuwirth's startlingly faithful music-theatre treatment of David Lynch's 1997 neo-noir has been resurrected in the Young Vic for a short run. Fans of the film are doubtless aware of its complex Mobius-strip narrative,......

We like to think we have a broad range of cultural interests at Londonist. In a day, we can bring you news of a new electro-pop retro psychedelia band playing Camden, a Korean theatre company performing a German play to tango music, an art exhibition that involves bringing your own art and dance performances full of writhing nude, geriatric bodies. So it gave us no end of pleasure to hear of two news items......

The English National Opera are closing their season with what's advertised as a 'lavish new production of the legendary Broadway musical', Kismet. This strange, hybrid stage musical (heavy Russian score mixes with a book filled with light Edwardian exotic melodrama, harems, beggars and murderers from 1071 AD mixing with 1950s lyrics) hasn't been performed on the West End stage for nearly 30 years. With its setting in Baghdad, and an entire song dedicated to......

We have already offered our two pennies on the BBC's Song for London competition and have gathered enough London-themed songs to hum tunelessly on the bus and while doing the washing up. Still, among us are many who would rather throw their heads back and sing out loud and for you, look what has been organised... Sing London is a week of events encouraging Londoners to sing. Lots of venues and organisations have joined......

A new season of ENO-Enders is about to start, with an all-new cast, new characters and dazzling new storylines and plots to keep audiences glued to what's going on at the Coliseum, the home of English National Opera. After the explosive cliffhanger ending of season one just before Christmas, Artistic Director Sean Doran has gone and is replaced by John Berry, previously seen as Director of Opera Programming. Loretta Tomasi who formerly starred in......

Opera has become soap opera with the latest episode of uproar, dissent and... umm... angry letters to the board of directors of the English National Opera about the conduct of Martin Smith, the Chairman . Here's a quick recap before tonight's latest episode of ENO-Enders... Two weeks ago on ENO-Enders: Chairman Smith: Oi you, beat it. Artistic Director of ENO Sean Doran: Who, me? Can't I finish doing whatever Artistic Directors do at the......

The theme for this weekend in the classical world is: Singers We Should Like, But Which Recent Press Coverage Has Made Us Skeptical Of. Exhibit one: Xerxes at the ENO, which was supposed to open on Wednesday until it the whole show was cancelled due to required "stage maintenance". Uh, would that be "planned engineering work"? We're sorry, but when did London Underground take over the English National Opera? Anyway, the real opening night......

After a tearful Popstarz on Friday, Londonist had a very operatic weekend, with the premiere of Anthony Minghella's new staging of Madame Butterfly at the English National Opera on Saturday, and Opera Rara's one-off unstaged performance of Donizetti's Il diluvio universale on Saturday. This is not the place for a detailed review of the Opera Rara event, since it's too late to tell you to go to it, and if even if we could.........

If you received your English National Opera brochure for the upcoming autumn season in the mail last week, like we did, your first though was probably the same as ours: "Who are these creepy, inappropriately sexualised adolescents, and what are their pictures doing all over my opera brochure?" Honestly... the brochure looks like it should be titled Barely Legal. As you can see to the left, the jailbait youth whose picture accompanies the description......

If you haven't purchased your tickets for the English National Opera's unstaged production of Brian Ferneyhough's Shadowtime on July 9, not to worry! There are still tickets available! Um, that is, there are, it seems, quite a few tickets still available. In fact, to no one's surprise, not very many people want to see Shadowtime at all. In case you missed the deafening buzz surrounding this UK premiere, Shadowtime is an Opera about the......