Mark Ronan
Mark Ronan

Professor of Mathematics. Author of Symmetry and the Monster — a popular account of one of the great quests in mathematics. Specialist in Mesopotamian history and literature. Cold-water swimmer. Regular reviewer of opera and ballet.

Latest Theatre Reviews

Don Quichotte, Festival Theatre, Bregenz, July 2019

July 19, 2019

This production by Mariam Clément of Massenet’s final opera set all five acts differently, and the overall effect was tremendous. She deals with modern concerns about male role models and masculinity, and the overall effect at the end of a stage within a stage within a stage was hugely moving. Wonderful performances by Gábor Bretz …

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Rigoletto, Bregenz Festival Lake Stage, July 2019

July 19, 2019

This production by Philipp Stölzl boasted a superbly engineered set with a giant moving head, two hands, and a balloon that rose more than 30 metres into the air. Mechanically a great achievement, but the staging was too busy by half, with singers and acrobats appearing all over the place, including inside and on top …

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Georgiana, Buxton Festival, July 2019

July 8, 2019

A new opera pastiche on the unusual life of the glamorous and politically active Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. It uses eighteenth century music by Mozart and others, including some from popular songs of the day, put together by Mark Tatlow with a libretto by Michael Williams, the new CEO of the Buxton Festival. See my …

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Eugene Onegin, Buxton Festival, July 2019

July 7, 2019

A simple production by using images of future events as a clever device to inject an element of fatalism. Conducted by the new artistic director Adrian Kelly it boasted luxury casting with Joshua Bloom as Prince Gremin, along with George Humphreys as an Onegin who acquired sympathetic gravitas as the opera progressed, plus fine performances …

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Anna Bolena, Longborough Festival Opera, June 2019

June 25, 2019

This opera about Anne Boleyn was Donizetti’s first big success in 1830, and under the excellent baton of Jeremy Silver singers and orchestra came together to bring it fully to life. During the overture we see a silent mime where a queen removes her crown and her jewels, observed by a noble lady in a green …

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Belshazzar, The Grange Festival, June 2019

June 21, 2019

A terrific home run for the Grange Festival in Hampshire, where since taking over in 2017 counter-tenor Michael Chance has encouraged superb productions of opera from the baroque period. This year was the turn of Handel’s oratorio Belshazzar, never before professionally staged in this country. See my review in The Article.

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Latest Journalism

Eureka Moments in Syracuse

In a charming Sicilian museum you can test the theories of antiquity’s greatest mathematician. See my article in Standpoint magazine, July/ August 2019, p. 59

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Brotherly and sisterly love

André and Simone Weil were two sides of the same coin: impatient; determined; brilliant; attracted to ancient wisdom and ideas. Standpoint magazine, May 2019, pp. 61–2

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The English National Opera 2019/20 Season

The English National Opera needs to attract new audiences, so they must produce stagings that people want to see. Trying to be in the vanguard of bizarre reinterpretations won’t work, so what does the next season hold?

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Playing the numbers game

This review of David Spiegelhalter’s excellent new book The Art of Statistics shows that the methodology behind the numbers is hugely important, but the numbers themselves can still be misinterpreted. Standpoint magazine, April 2019, pp 61–2

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Brought to book

Some academic publishers abuse the system by producing fifth rate books with a good title and blurb, which American university libraries feel obliged to buy. Standpoint magazine, April 2019, p. 8.

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First woman to win the prestigious Abel mathematics prize

My ex-colleague Karen Uhlenbeck has just won the Abel Prize, mathematicians’ answer to the Nobel Prize, which has no category for mathematics. Bravo to her and to the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters for instituting this prize named after the brilliant young Norwegian mathematician Niels Henrik Abel. My summary in The Article.

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Civilisation made concrete

The great ‘Hanging Garden’ was built by the ancient Assyrians, who were pioneering builders and engineers, Standpoint magazine, February 2019, p.70.

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Feature

Symmetry and the Monster is the story of a mathematical quest that began two hundred years ago in revolutionary France, led to the biggest collaboration ever between mathematicians across the world, and revealed the ‘Monster’ – not monstrous at all, but a structure of exquisite beauty and complexity.

This book tells for the first time the fascinating story of the biggest theorem ever to have been proved. Mark Ronan graphically describes not only the last few decades of the chase, but also some of the more interesting byways, including my personal favourite, the one I called “Monstrous Moonshine”.

John H. Conway, von Neumann Chair of Mathematics, Princeton University

Opera on 3: for the BBC Radio 3 broadcast (on 19 November 2016) of Parsifal from this summer’s Bayreuth Festival, I was the guest with presenter Christopher Cook. We discussed the opera and its production, which I reviewed for the Daily Telegraph on 27 July 2016.

Truth and Beauty: The Hidden World of Symmetry

On the face of it, symmetry may seem simple, but diving beneath the surface reveals a whole new world. Over the last 100 years, the mathematical idea of symmetry has proved to be a guiding light for the world of physics. But what does a mathematician mean by symmetry? How does this link in with the world around us? And could it be the key to the mysterious ‘Theory of Everything’?

This was a BBC Radio programme on Symmetry in the Naked Scientists series. Here is the link