Canadian-born Mel Cooper first came to the UK to study English Literature at Oxford University and stayed. He was captivated by the culture and history of Britain, which he found to be a welcoming and tolerant country. After working in highly illustrated, non-fiction publishing for over a decade, he founded and edited the magazine Opera Now. Since then he has worked as a consultant to the Japanese broadcaster NHK, a broadcaster on British Satellite Broadcasting, a maker of audio shows and arts critic for several airlines, and as one of the team that started Britain’s first commercial classical music radio station, Classic FM, on which he was both a classical music DJ and creator and presenter of shows like Classic America and Authentic
Performance. Throughout this period, he also lectured in music and literature in London and Oxford and published short stories in Canada. After working with the Genesis Foundation on helping to fund arts projects, he continues to write, review and lecture on music and literature. His first novel has just been published as an e-book. The title is City of Dreams. It is the first volume of a projected saga called The Dream Bearers. You can find the Kindle version of the book on Amazon.
The Welsh National Opera have again produced a “reduced” version of an opera to tour small scale and mid-sized venues throughout this summer. Except t...
The new Longborough Opera Festival production of Das Rheingold approximates, within the “given” of its setting and budget, just about everything that ...
I liked Napoli, Brooklyn. I found it interesting, though in the end it just didn’t quite add up for me. Set in Brooklyn in 1960, the story of three da...
The Provoked Wife by John Vanbrugh is given a production that it truly deserves at the RSC, pivoting cleverly between disgust with human mendacity and...
The new production of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest at the Watermill Theatre near Newbury is another success for this fascinating and ...
Mel Cooper talks to the conductor and founder of the Classic Opera company about the latest step in his Project 250 and also meets the show’s director...
Macheath was conceived as a loveable rogue, a highwayman type, in the original John Gay send-up of opera, politics, society and greed, The Beggar’s Op...
I try to accept “the given” of anything I see. But I am afraid that this time I simply cannot accept Club Tropicana. I tried. I wanted to enjoy it. I ...
The new Headlong production of Shakespeare’s Richard III is to be seen if possible because of the intelligent and thoughtful direction by John Haidar ...
