Composed in 1751, Handel’s Jephtha is based on the story from Judges XI and George Buchanan’s 1554 play Jephthes, sive Votum. It sees the Israelite Jephtha triumph in battle over the Ammonites, but then face the most dreadful situation. This is because he had vowed that if he were victorious he would sacrifice the first living creature he saw on his return, and this turns out to be his daughter Iphis. To make the work acceptable to an eighteenth century audience,...

Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life of 1946, itself based on Philip Van Doren Stern’s short story The Greatest Gift (self-published in 1943), is one of the all time classic Christmas films. It sees George Bailey, played by James Stewart, grow up in the first half of the twentieth century in an American town named Bedford Falls. George has ambitions to go to college and see the world, but at every point in his life he is held back by circumstances and a sense of...

Philip Glass, who is recognised as one of the leading proponents of minimalism in the world today, has written over twenty-five operas, a total achieved by hardly any composer since the days of Rossini, Donizetti and Verdi. His 1991 work Orphée is the final addition to English National Opera’s current season of operas exploring the Orpheus myth, and is based on Jean Cocteau’s eponymous film of 1950. It is, in the words of the production’s director Netia Jones,...