In Paris for the Prokofiev opera ‘Love for Three Oranges’ at Opera Bastille. A great production by Gilbert Deflo, with added action from circus performers – which made it really entertaining.

Amazing Impressionist and Post Impressionist collections at the Musée d’Orsay, Paris.

The museum is housed in the former Gare d’Orsay, an impressive Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900 on the left bank of the river Seine. The collection includes mainly French paintings and sculpture from the mid nineteenth century to World War I. It has the largest collection of Impressionist and Post Impressionist art in the world, with works by Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir, Cézanne, Seurat, Gauguin and Van Gogh amongst others.

Fascinating day exploring the ethnographic collections at the Musée du Quai Branly, Paris.

The museum holds a fantastic collection of indigenous art from Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas. It has a total of over a quarter of a million objects, of which about 3,500 are on display at any one time. I was particularly impressed with the Oceanic collection with fetish figures and masks from Micronesia, Papua New Guinea and Australasia.

With James Joyce in Trieste. Joyce lived in Trieste for many of the years between 1904 – 1920, working for some of the time as an English teacher at the Berlitz language school. Whilst in Trieste he wrote most of the stories in ‘Dubliners,’ as well as ‘A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man’.

Great weekend in Florence for a Bartok double bill. Sublime performances of both the ballet ‘The Miraculous Mandarin’ and the opera ‘Bluebeard’s Castle’ at the Teatro Comunale.

This was a joint production with Japan’s ‘Saito Kinen Festival’ and the combination of the sometimes acrobatic dance techniques from the Noism Dance Company with Maggio Dance made this a real spectacle.

Really excellent Picasso exhibition at Tate Britain in London – ‘Picasso and Modern British Art’ explores his influence on British artists. Over sixty Picassos are on show, including ‘Weeping Woman’ and ‘The Three Dancers’, alongside works by the British artists he inspired, including Wyndham Lewis, Ben Nicholson, Henry Moore, Francis Bacon, Graham Sutherland and David Hockney.

Pablo Picasso ‘Nude Woman in a Red Armchair’ (1932)

Henry Moore ‘Reclining Figure’ (1936)

Pablo Picasso ‘The Source’ (1921)

At the Barbican in London for the Stravinsky Festival with the London Symphony Orchestra and Valery Gergiev – three fantastic concerts.

Friday 11 May: ‘Mass’, ‘Violin Concerto’ (superbly played by Leonidas Kavakos) and ‘The Firebird’. Sunday 13 May: ‘Renard’ and ‘he Soldier’s Tale’. Tuesday 15 May: ‘The Rite of Spring’ and ‘Oedipus Rex ‘(narrated by Simon Callow)

Valery Gergiev

A sunny March day in the beautiful city of Venice.

In Padova, Italy, to see the amazing Giotto frescoes at Cappella degli Scrovegni. Completed by Giotto around 1305, this is one of the most important masterpieces of Western art.

The fresco cycle shows scenes from the life of Christ and the life of the Virgin and contains a frighteningly impressive ‘Last Judgement’. Surely one of the artistic wonders of the world.

Cappella degli Scrovegni, Padova

Giotto ‘The Last Judgement’ (1304 – 6)

Giotto ‘Kiss of Judas’ (1304 – 6)