Max Hastings' London Cultural Diary

London arts picks from Max Hastings, Evening Standard and The Telegraph former editor, broadcaster and historian.

Dance: Sleeping Beauty, Royal Ballet at ROH, until 09 April 14

Until I was 40 I wasn’t remotely interested in the ballet; now I enjoy it more than any other art form. I think it’s because when I was a newspaper editor I had to see all the new plays opening in London, and although theatre does lots of things brilliantly, many, many productions were very disappointing. You get fewer duff evenings at Covent Garden, for both opera and ballet.  Last year my wife and I went to see Carmen at the Sydney Opera House and ballet at the Odessa Theatre in the Ukraine, and both performances made us realise how phenomenally lucky we are to have Covent Garden in Britain. 

Book: Donna Tartt, Goldfinch

My philosophy is why read a modern novel when Dickens and Trollope did it so much better. But my wife tells me I’ve got to read the new Donna Tartt.

Book: Adam Tooze, The Deluge : The Great War and the Remaking of Global Order 1916-1931 

This book interests me very much because Tooze reminds us about what went wrong in 1918 when the US refused to shoulder the responsibilities that come with its wealth and power. Over the last 70 years a huge number of critics on the left have denounced it for trying to arbitrate the destinies of other counties, but the aftermath of WW1 show that we live in a worse world when the US is isolationist and sits on its hands.

Opera: Glyndebourne 2014

We haven’t decided what we’re going to see yet – we’ll wait a bit to hear the word of mouth. The quality is very uneven at country house opera – we’ve seen some catastrophic performances at Grange Park Opera, for example – but Glyndebourne is always tremendous fun. 

Werther, Metropolitan Opera

Our local cinema, the Vue in Newbury, shows live performances of opera and theatre from the Royal Opera House and the National Theatre, which has made seeing opera and ballet much less of a high-risk investment of money and time, as well of course, as bringing it to a much wider audience. We’re looking forward to the Met’s production of Massenet’s Werther, which is directed by Richard Eyre. 

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