When freedom came, God disappeared- Standpoint, 22 June 2020

Shortly before his death in January this year, the philosopher Sir Roger Scruton had completed an opera libretto, called An Angel Passes. It is now being set to music by the distinguished composer David Matthews, who has commented on its excellence as an operatic vehicle, perhaps in part because Scruton was himself the composer of two operas. To my mind, even as a bare libretto, An Angel Passes encapsulates some of Scruton’s most profound and revelatory thinking, nowhere more so than in the enig...