The Guardian view on opera: still powerful, still relevant | Editorial

Opera, an artform that exemplifies Europe’s cultural interconnectedness, should not be written off as simply elitistThe V&A’s new exhibition, the first to be shown in its elegant, recently completed extension by architect Amanda Levete, is devoted to the gloriously extreme world of opera. The show, a collaboration with the Royal Opera House, tells a story that begins with the birth pangs of the artform amid the new sounds of Monteverdi’s Coronation of Poppaea in Venice in 1