The reviews have already begun to trickle in, and one thing is certain: Gerald Barry's new opera at the ENO, The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant is some weird, fucked-up shit. You must go see it. We expressed our high hopes for this opera quite some time ago. Our anticipation increased to fever pitch when we read that a dress inspired by Big Brother's Makosi would be worn on stage. (PS, it was.)......

After a slump last week, the Proms ignite like a Roman candle starting tonight. (And in case you were wondering, the Pärt concert was exactly as uninspired and unrevealing as we feared in terms of programming, and excellently sung as we expected. Gubaidulina's piece on Saturday gets a big thumbs up.) Tonight: Hélène Grimaud. So, we already declared that Leila Josefowicz was the Monika Seles of the violin, but there's no better way to......

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......