Rodney Milnes

Who is Rodney Milnes?

Rodney Milnes Blumer is an English music critic, musicologist, writer, translator and broadcaster, with a particular interest in opera.

He attended Rugby School and studied history at Christ Church, Oxford, Oxford University before working in publishing.

Milnes was opera critic of Harpers and Queen, opera critic of The Spectator, Evening Standard, and Chief Opera Critic The Times. He was associate editor of Opera from 1976, deputy editor from 1984, and editor between 1986–99. There he honed his reputation as a "trenchant and entertaining writer, with a strong background in literature and theatre, and wide musical sympathies". In his final editorial for Opera, Milnes wrote "Thank you to all of those who have written in outrage cancelling their subscriptions, and then not done so. Thank you to all readers for being so patient with my bêtes noires. I know I’m wrong about surtitles and they’re here to stay. So are sponsors and their lordly, impertinent ways. Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t really feel that a century that starts with Lilian Baylis and ends with Chris Smith is one that has seen a lot in the way of progress".