MUSIC
Proms: Get booking now for this two-month season (18 July to 13 September).
Highlights include the Berliner Philharmoniker with Sir Simon Rattle (Brahms and Shostakovich) on 3 September; Handel’s Belshazzar conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras (16 August); Daniel Barbenboim’s West-Eastern Divan Orchestra playing Haydn, Schoenberg and Brahms (14 August); plus endless other goodies. For tickets tel: 0845 401 5040 or book online www.bbc.co.uk/proms
OPERA
Opera Holland Park is always a challenge at this time of year — will it rain or not? On opening night (Il trovatore) it poured — but nobody seemed to mind much. Other operas include Donizetti’s La Fille du Regiment and Mozart’s Magic Flute. For tickets tel: 0845 230 9769 or online www.rbkc.gov.uk/ohphollandpark
BOOK
Ferdinand Mount’s Cold Cream (Bloomsbury). A delightful memoir, chronicling Mount’s childhood in Wiltshire, his travels around Europe with his mother, his time at school, Oxford and Downing Street, surrounded by his charmingly eccentric ‘Hobohemian’ family and friends. Altogether a wonderfully witty and elegant recalling of his ‘early life and other mistakes’.
THEATRE
Marguerite — The Musical (Theatre Royal, Haymarket). Set in Paris during the second world war, the play (based on Dumas’s La Dame aux Camelias) stars the terrific Ruthie Henshall (mistress of a high-ranking Nazi), who falls in love with a penniless musician (Julian Ovenden). Alain Boublil, Claude-Michel Schönberg and Herbert Kretzmer are the team responsible (remember Les Misérables?), along with Michel Legrand, who wrote the music. Great songs and lyrics.
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