A week of four operas came to a close last night with Mozart’s final opera La Clemenza di Tito. This is a a delve into the Roman world, which gladly had received an update in setting from people wandering around in togas! I had read a number of reviews of this work before we went, most praising the performances and music but derising the setting, so I was ready to experience the opera with little attention on the set. However at the end of the first half, we were in agreement with the performances but also very impressed by the set. The clever use of a turntable with a screen and projections we thought very clever, and the scene of Rome burning was excellent. I do wonder at those prefering a ‘traditional’ performance and how relevant a Roman setting would seem now-a-days. This allowed so much more into the drama – often seeing those not in the scene to give...

A Sunday afternoon treat today with a double-bill of operas. Both of these I’d never listened to or seen so they were a bit of a mystery.  La Voix Humaine by Poulenc was first performed in 1959 and is a 40 minute ‘tragedy lyrique’ for a single voice. Lesley Garrett returned to Opera North, a Company she was part of in their early days, to perform Elle. The synopsis from the Opera North web site: A woman is sprawled alone on her bed. ‘It looks like the scene of a murder’ said Jean Cocteau, who wrote the play on which Poulenc’s opera is based.  But the woman isn’t dead.  She gets up and makes to leave, when the phone rings. It is her ex-lover. During the next 40 minutes we hear one side of an increasingly desperate conversation in which the woman tries anything to win him back.  But it’s no use – she can’t get through to him. He hangs up, and she’s left whispering ‘Je...

After a pretty long break since the autumn, we had the first of four operas in a week last Wednesday; a new production of Verdi’s Otello. Based on Shakepeare’s play (not unusual for Verdi) it was set in a naval base in the 40s-50s. The set really worked! To summarise the plot, taken from the Opera North website: Iago, an ensign in the Venetian army, is a man who bears a grudge. When his general, Otello, passes him over for promotion in favour of Cassio, Iago’s festering resentment quickly turns to downright malice. He poisons Otello’s mind with suspicion, and step by step, leads Otello to believe that his young wife Desdemona is in love with the young and handsome Cassio. And so Iago, a man consumed by envy, makes Otello into a monster of murderous jealousy. Celebrating the 200th anniversary of the composer’s birth, this breathtaking new production brings Shakespeare’s...

Last night we went to our annual production by the Agatha Christie Theatre Company, “Murder on the Nile”. Dame Agatha wrote the scripts for her plays and often altered books to suit the stage, often with subtle changes to the plot. “Murder on the Nile” is obviously a version of the famous Poirot novel “Death on the Nile”. The first notable alteration is that Poirot isn’t in the stage play! The detective role is taken by Canon Pennyfather; guardian of the rich Kaye Mostyn (nee Ridgeway) and is a replacement for Kaye’s trustee Andrew Pennington. SPOILER ALERT – don’t read on if you’ve not read the book, seen the screen adaptations, seen this play – or don’t really mind knowing who did it!! The scene is the outer deck of the cruise, and much of the starting part of the play is directly from the novel. The...