Gareth's Culture and Travel Blog

OPERA

Another successful visit to Britain’s most accessible and best value opera company, Welsh National Opera,  in Cardiff. Wozzeck was given a great production and was brilliantly sung, but the depressing tale and inaccessible music meant it didn’t really light my fire. La Traviata, however, was one of those evenings at the opera when it all comes together. You might be able to hear better individual singing, but the combination of staging, design, acting and singing made this a deeply satisfying experience, amongst the best in 30 years of opera going. Madam Butterfly was marred by the sickness of Amanda Roocroft though, despite wooden acting, her substitute Anne Williams-King’s singing was impressive in what appeared to be her first (and hastily rehearsed) role debut. Conductor Carlo Rizzi worked wonders keeping it all together, at one point slowing down the orchestra whilst she got back on track in her aria! A wonderful comic moment was provided by the child actor who proceeded to set light to a small cherry blossom branch. Suzuki extinguished the flame but thereafter every time he picked up another piece, she grabbed it off him!

Sometimes ify reviews lower your expectations and you come out pleasantly surprised……and so it was with the ENO’s Turandot. Rupert Goold’s ‘big idea’ is to set it in the Imperial Palace Chinese Restaurant where there appears to be a fancy dress party taking place. There is an extra (mute) character called ‘The Writer’ which appears to be Puccini himself (he is killed at the point where Puccini himself died whilst writing the opera). He steals his own ideas from his own recent production of Six Characters in Search of an Author; at times the characters seem to be telling him they don’t like the part they have been written. The critics found it gimmicky, but I found it intriguing (and the interval conversations interesting). No-one seems to have focused on the fact that the musical standards are exceptional – the orchestra and chorus make a terrific noise and the leads are very well cast.

MUSIC

At the Barbican, the City of London Sinfonia and the LSO Chorus put on a deeply moving tribute to the life and work of conductor and champion of British music Richard Hickox who died just under a year ago. Britten’s Sea Interludes have never sounded better and the chorus excelled in Holst’ Hymn of Jesus. Pieces by Elgar and Vaughan Williams made up a gorgeous programme.

ART

Moctezuma is the fourth exhibition of the lives of great rulers in the reading room at the British Museum, following China’s First Emperor, Hadrian and Persia’s Shah Abbas, and it is as fascinating as the others. This is such a good space and again it’s curated very well.

FILM

I thought District 9 was going to be pure SciFi , but it turned out to be Dr. Who meets Terminator and far too gory for me, I’m afraid.  500 days of Summer was a clever film but the story and characters didn’t interest or engage me enough to hold my attention.