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Articles by The Guardian for covent garden

Plácido Domingo on the mend

2010/03/09 by Charlotte Higgins

Plácido Domingo, having withdrawn from the Royal Opera's current production of Tamerlano to undergo surgery, is now out of hospital in New York, where, according to his spokeswoman, he had a "malignant localised polyp" removed from his colon. He has been prescribed six weeks of rest, but should be back in action for La Scala's production of Simon Boccanegra on 16 April – and should be all right to sing in the same opera at Covent Garden in June.

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Marianela Nuñez and Thiago Soares: a classic Latin love affair

2010/03/07 by Luke Jennings

Marianela Nuñez arches her spine, closes her eyes, and presses her thumbs into the muscles of her lower back. It's midday, and she's been rehearsing the ballet La Fille mal gardée all morning with Cuban dancer Carlos Acosta. "I love it," she says…

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Philip Langridge obituary

2010/03/07 by Barry Millington

With the death of Philip Langridge from bowel cancer at the age of 70, the musical world has lost a singer widely regarded as one of the finest tenors of his generation. A versatile performer, he was particularly renowned for his appearances in opera and oratorio, in repertoire ranging from Monteverdi and Mozart to Harrison Birtwistle and Thomas Adès, taking in Handel, Tippett, Stravinsky, Janacek, Schoenberg and others on the way.

Considered by many to be the natural successor to Peter Pears in the leading roles of Benjamin Britten's operas, he was highly praised as Peter Grimes, Peter Quint/Prologue in The Turn of the Screw, Gustav von Aschenbach in Death in Venice and Captain Vere in Billy Budd, bringing fluid phrasing, incisive articulation and dramatic authority to all these roles…

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Tenor Philip Langridge dies aged 70

2010/03/07 by Mark Brown, arts correspondent

One of the world's finest operatic tenors, Philip Langridge, has died aged 70. Tributes were led by the Royal Opera and the composer Sir Harrison Birtwistle, who called him a "unique artist-musician" who left "a large hole in the world's music".

Langridge appeared on all the world's great stages after his career began at Glyndebourne in 1964, in Richard Strauss's Capriccio…

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Charlie Brooker's Screen burn

2010/03/06 by Charlie Brooker

Reader, I apologise in advance. Words can't describe the exquisite mix of pain, fury and joy that is Pineapple Dance Studios (Sun, 6pm, Sky1). Yet words must suffice…

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Disgraced City tycoon Tim Power opens a copy of The Ivy in Florida

2010/03/02 by Andrew Clark in Miami

One is a top London dining establishment favoured by A-list celebrities. The other is an upscale English restaurant opened by a disgraced City tycoon in the sunshine of south Florida. A tale of two Ivys is causing an acrimonious transatlantic squabble over shepherd's pie, Eton mess and Krug…

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As One/ Rushes – Fragments of a Lost Story/ Infra

2010/02/28 by Luke Jennings

Twenty-five-year-old Royal Ballet dancer Jonathan Watkins has been choreographing since he was a student, and last week he saw his latest piece, As One, performed on the Covent Garden main stage. Much about the work is praiseworthy: it is confidently broad-scale, Graham Fitkin's score is adult and challenging, and Simon Daw's set designs strike a fashionable balance between retro and contemporary. Underpinning the piece is the notion that while we live atomised lives as individuals, couples and tribes, we can break down the barriers between us if we accept each others' differences…

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Covent Garden's backstage jewels find Essex home

2010/02/28 by Vanessa Thorpe, arts and media correspondent

Maria Callas in full voice, Margot Fonteyn en pointe; both seem a far cry from a tract of clay mud that stretches between the Eurostar rail tracks and a view of the Dartford crossing across a 1950s council terrace. But then this is Thurrock, and nobody promised a rose garden.

Except that now the people of Thurrock are being promised a rose garden, and much more besides – apiece of Covent Garden, complete with the sparkling glamour of its greatest operatic divas and prima ballerinas, is about to be transplanted to one of the most unlikely locations…

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Brilliant fashion designers you've never heard of

2010/02/26 by Kelly Bowerbank

London fashion week has streamed past in a blur of orthopaedic shoes, low hemlines and considered clashes. With 68 catwalk shows on the official schedule alone, it sure ain't easy keeping up with who's hot and who's not. Yes, Christopher Kane is hot, but tell us something we don't know … Well, fear not, dear reader! Yours truly has done the hard work for you…

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Fashion Statement extra: Weekend roundup from London fashion week

2010/02/22 by Simon Chilvers

Dripping ceilings, trilbies, aprons, antlers, weird veils, Olivia Palmero, Sarah Brown, sunglasses indoors and lashings of champers: it can only be the weekend shows of London fashion week, where ideas for autumn/winter 2010 are being proposed by some of Britain's hottest designers. The fashion pack, meanwhile, are either a) doing their best to out-dress one another, or b) in typical London spirit, affecting an oh-i-just-tossed-this-on-from-a-pile-of-stuff-on-my-bedroom-floor vibe.

FIVE FASHION HIGHSTopshop's Emma Cook-designed headdresses…

Read full article Fashion Statement extra: Weekend roundup from London fashion week