Copenhagen: bikes, bins and garbage

I have never been to a more filthy city than Copenhagen; beautiful but filthy.

The guide book says Scandinavians are touchy about tourists criticising them so let’s look at Bergen or Oslo just across the water as well. All three are great tourist cities – particularly if you manage to score one of the five days a year in Bergen when it’s not raining. All are easy to get around if you ignore the fact that Copenhagen bus maps and timetables are difficult to find. All three have great food that poor Aussie pensioner-tourists can afford. Anyway, snuffling out cheap, obscure bistros is much more fun that simply consulting your Michelin Guide (number of stars equals number of years in advance required to book). All three have great suburban train systems that connect to very frequent country systems. And when you get stuck people will happily help.

Copenhagen’s bikes deserve a tourist star in their own right. None of the macho status stuff we get in Melbourne. Not a thread (?) of lycra in sight. Dad pedalling like mad, Mum and the kids in a box-sort-of-thing out front and everybody getting stuck into ice-creams. And the thousands of commuter-riders don’t yet appear to have found the sport of attempting to kill tourists who amble all mind-in-neutral onto the bike lanes.

What Copenhagen does have as well is rubbish in huge quantities. Walk across the Børsgade bridge over the canal. Every crevice, every crack is full of cigarette butts; thousands of them. Drink cans and coffee cups wedged into the bridge superstructure suggests clean-up is an annual event if at all. Suburban streets are much the same; dray-loads of cigarette butts in gutters and on footpaths.

Norreport Metro station opens above the fabulous driverless trains that run every two or three minutes. On the surface a monumental bike rack that doubles as a giant pissoir. The stink is overpowering. The glass skirt panels of the escalators to the platforms are all lavishly decorated with dribbles of melted ice-cream or some sugary liquid. And on a Sunday morning about 10 am dried vomit still festoons the platform rubbish bins.

The bright yellow Havnebussen (water ferry) commutes between the Nyhavn ferry terminal (a few metres from the Royal Danish Playhouse) and the Copenhagen Opera House just across the water. Under the Nyhavn jetty’s wooden seat, two neat piles of human shit. They were there for more than 24 hours quietly drying in the morning mist.

Mahler Chamber Orchestra: Leif Ove Andsnes

Bergen International Festival

Grieghallen, Bergen

May 25 2012

Two little blokes they were; one about ten, his brother - with round glasses - about eight. Both had number two crewcuts; both looked sharpish. At interval they'd taken advantage of losing their parents in the crowd and of the sample chocolates and the promo-coffee with a kick like a moose. The nuclear grade coffee evidently did the trick. They sat alert in the middle of the front row almost immediately behind the pianist - who had his back to the audience - and absorbed the entire concerto: Beethoven's third.

The kids probably had no idea of the standard of the music they were listening to but the sell-out crowd did. At the end they roared approval. Two and a half thousand people leaped to their feet and not just because Andsnes was the home-boy made good - very good.

Leif Ove Andsnes had once been an usher with the Bergen Interational Festival. He had come back as the lead act with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra from Berlin to play Beethoven's first piano concerto wth its beautiful slow movement and, after coffee time, the third.

The playing was simply superb. Beautiful Beethoven. Perfect piano concerto-making.

Early on there were a number of indicators that this was to be. The first - and most obvious - was that the piano faced the orchestra - or, if you will - the pianist had his back to the audience. The second was that the pianist, when conducting, made no extravagant arm movements, no tortured hand gestures, no doubling-up in an agony of music making, no stamping of the foot to emphasise the down beat to bring in the brass: all gestures used by "maestro" Jensen conducting the NDR Radiophilharmonie  in the same hall a few days later. The third, at the end, was that his orchestra loved him. They smiled at him - and each other - and applauded him because he had evidenty rolled in and said, "You blokes (men-blokes and more than 50% women-blokes) know what you are doing, I know what I am doing, let's go out there and do it". And they did. He treated his young players with respect and they responded with relaxed, precise, skilled music making.

The concert was not about Andsnes. It was not even about Mahler Chamber Orchestra - although it could have been about either. This performance was about Beethoven.

Trine Wilsberg Lund and Alexander Soddy, Bergen International Festival

Nordic Hour
Haarkon's Hall
Bergen
28 May 2012

I got chased down a lane today by a (not at all angry) waitress. Something about not paying for the wine glasses. Wine glasses? Glasses of wine!  Same difference! Blame the company: a gorgeous Nordic blonde soprano, a superb 29 year old accompanist and 15 oldies including me. We were investigating "Spring Music in Norway and Iceland" with Renaissance Tours and we were spending six days at the Bergen Internatioal Festival.

We'd all had lunch, us olds, with our guests Trine Wilsberg Lund and Alexander Soddy. We'd heard them the day before in the Hakonshallen - a huge 13C stone baronial hall - as part of the Bergen Festival. In a display of enormous courage the two young people had accepted an invitation to eat with a gang of Aussies who were on a sort of concert version of a pub crawl.

Trine had sung songs by Sibelius, Stenhammar, Alfven, Sjoberg and, very importantly for me, Grieg.  A lot of Grieg. I'd played some of the Grieg lied decades before for an A Mus A friend and I loved them. I had worked with singers all my life so I knew how to pick a bad - and a good - accompanist.

Trine had selected songs that showed off her beautiful (lyric?) soprano: a lovely strong head voice with assured high notes and a rich chest voice with no growl and no break in transition from head to chest. But best of all she had the skill and musicianship to sing high notes p, pp and ppp with full depth of tone. That singing was both rare and beautiful.

The singing was simply delightful! We were entranced - sitting in the secod row just behind her proud parents, her sister and her friend from kindy - and one or two of us were moved to tears. We heard Grieg and Norway that day, not the singer, because the songs were in the singer's heart and she gave  each phrase the space it needed to beathe and live.

Over lunch we talked to Alexander about his sensitive accompanying defined as being alongside, about listening (of course he does; she's his fiance) about his career so far from a music degree at Cambridge, moving to Hamburg, meeting Simone Young, becoming her repetiteur and conducting protege, conducting opera and the enormous value of the transition from accompanist through opera work to symphonic conducting so that the conductor lets each phrase breathe. His career so far and his appointments were of a great musician in his own right.

Soon the lunch chatter turned to the Melbourne Recital Centre and Elizabeth Murdoch Hall; a wonderful place to start an Australian recital tour. Soon! Please?

Natalia Goldmann, Joachim Kjelsaas Kwetzisky

Varkonsert
Munch-museet
Oslo
24 May 2012

l heard Natalia Goldmann play a cello today. No, I hadn't heard of her either. She was practising the Rach. opus 19 sonata with Joachim Kjelsaas Kwetzinsky just before lunch so I sneaked into the back of the hall and hoped I would not be thrown out . I had no idea - except that it was late Romantic - what I was listening to so I had to ask. I felt pretty stupid when the other half of the program - the clarinet - told me.

There was talent here. Lots of talent. Natalia was clearly in control of the piece, so much so that I wanted to wander up the front,  close her score and say, "You don't need this".

I stayed to hear the recital because it's good to hear what young people are doing with music.  I heard all the joy then the pathos then the excitement and the Russia romanticism of Rachmanninov that came from the end of her bow.

Natalia and Emilio are Masters students at the Norgesmusikkholehe. Emilio Borghesan, the clarinetist, played Francaix, Widman and Brahms with pianists Per Arne Frantzen and Sigstein Folgero.

Natalia will regret strangling the last note of the third movement (a bowing problem) but she won't do that again. Other than that she demonstrated a wondeful understanding of the soul of the music and how to sing it.

Romantic concertos - and sonatas - are sometimes said to be a (thematic) duel between soloist and orchestra - or piano. In this performance Joachim won the (aural) duel - even though he was technically superb - hands down for most of the sonata. "Down a couple of notches from fff to f, my son!" He was a brilliant pianist but as an accompanist he was not always with her by a millionth of a second. (Perhaps she was simply in the wrong place. Perhaps he could not see her well.) That is, until half way through the last movement when he relaxed enough to catch sight of her bow out of the corner of his eye, then they sang together right through to the gut-grabbing end.

Simply superb!

I sat out in the warm Oslo sun because the others had gone to look back-stage at the opera house and ate a shrimp open sandwich under the pink crab-apple trees in flower and thought how much I had enjoyed the recital, how much talent and musicianship I had heard. My eye caught a dried flower floating in the breeze on a spider thread. I thought about the little stars in life that we stumble on by chance.

I was in Oslo on a Renaissance tour led by Mairi  Nicolson, an ABCFM presenter. I  had been supposed to be looking at Mr Munch's paintings and lithographs at the the time of the recital but music is much more my passion. No contest!

I managed to buy a Metro ticket and get back to the hotel without a map. Not bad for an old bloke.

Victorian Opera: Midnight Son

Midnight Son

Victorian Opera 

6 May 2012

What a complete sleaze he was. And absolutely convincing. The voice – in other circumstances, a beautiful first-class baritone - or is it a rich tenor? But in this part, Byron Watson’s voice had an edge of hardness and cruelty even in the last (ie, “first”) scene. 

In any successful narrative the reader must warm to or identify with one major character. Ray was not that character even in the extremity of his self-convinced innocence. In a word, the part worked both musically and dramatically.

Midnight Son was always going to be a risky venture especially in conservative Melbourne. Gordon Kerry’s score is contemporary and certainly not melodic but it is very accessible and it works superbly with Louis Nowra’s text. It seems to me that Nowra’s awful rhymes serve not to lighten the whole sordid affair but drive it deeper into awfulness.

A clever libretto, a clever score and soloists who were the part – not acting/singing the part – Midnight Son was a winner. The orchestra knew what the word “accompany” meant and the knew what the word “dramatic” meant.

Dimity Shepherd was an absolutely convincing fool to be sucked in by Ray’s sex appeal. He gave her enough hints, for goodness sake. “Will you swing for me?” and she thought he meant groupie parties where the ropes were not around her neck. But the sell-out aria was Antoinette Halloran’s torch song. I mean, are you sure she’s an opera singer? Poor Marisa/Maria/Juliet. The Good Catholic Girl for whom “swinging” meant something you do in the park on a sunny afternoon with your kids. But underneath that GCG was the luscious, warm woman that Ray apparently never found.

The first-night audience response was not terribly warm. But some elderly ladies – a straw poll of two – assured me that they really liked it, that the score did not put them off and that they were glad the plot was reversed because it gave them "something nice to go home with". 

This production is opera with balls. Big balls!

The Ringtone Cycle, Seraphim Trio and Lisa Harper-Brown

The Ringtone Cycle (Graeme Koehne)

Seraphim Trio and Lisa Harper-Brown

14 May 2012

A one-woman opera. A solo Brunnhilde? Well, no. More an opera for Brunnhilde and piano trio on a one-hour marathon. But a marathon where everybody galloped over the line with undiminished energy and style.

The parts, of which this opera was more than the sum, were all critical. No passengers here.

Peter Goldsworthy’s libretto: witty and spiced with the pathos of a lonely woman finding only sleeze in internet dating and, not even being able to settle for the least imperfect guy, finding solace only in Mum’s teapot. Here is the frustrating futility of the search for virtual sex or friendship that can only ever yield virtual satisfaction. So underneath the frenetic energy is a carpet  of sadness.

Graeme Koehne’s score: alternately exuberant and desperate but always clever and sharp. This was a score that always – every note – painted a sort of soundscape of Brunnhilde’s emotions: a roller-coater ride of anticipation, hope, frustration, anger and sadness. It's all there in the music.

Seraphim Trio: working damn hard in a complex score that required fast, furious and accurate playing. Trio playing is only for born accompanists. You no listen to each other you bugger it up. In The Ringtone Cycle it was also listen to Brunnhilde. In this respect the Trio was faultless. They always knew where she was going. There always arrived with her, never panting, bring up the rear. The performance was a genuine quartet for soprano and trio.

The “charismatic soprano” Lisa Harper-Brown: inelegant in grey trackie dacks, busy getting outside of a bottle of cheap red and at the mercy of that now so uncool Nokia ringtone singing – and acting – for a full hour. Perfectly placed high notes (no tension here) and no growling chest voice. A lyric soprano. Wikkidefinition: “... a type of operatic soprano that has a warm quality with a bright, full timbre ...” Exactly! We heard a rich, controlled, very expert voice and it was beautiful.

The event was a fund-raiser for Seraphim’s very valuable commissioning program. Even without Mrs. Ayres canapés and Cope-Williams bubbles and Coriole’s wine the fifty buck tickets were a steal.

The only disturbing part of the night was that the same day Nicky Winmar’s famous jumper was passed in at $95k, two Koehne page one scores only fetched $200 each.

Christopher's Holiday

The man on the aisle struggled to his feet to let me pass to get into my seat. He looked very elderly – well into his nineties. As he stood he slowly bent over and moved his wife's knees so that I wouldn't stand on her feet. She shot me a foul glare, her lips drawn back over her teeth. I recognised advanced Alzheimer's Disease. As I sat she moved her hands over her program incessantly, trying to separate the cover into pages. She did this all through the premier of John Adams City Noir with its jazz rhythms and inflections and chaotic climaxes. At one point her husband tried to take the program from her; he wrestled hard but failed. During interval he ate most of a block of hazelnut chocolate. He offered her his second-last piece but she showed no interest in it and the program origami continued. I wondered who their minder was and how they managed to get safely to their expensive seats in the stalls.

After interval it was Tchaikovsky's Pathetique. She stopped her paperwork and remained silent through the whole piece. Part way through he reached his right hand around to her left cheek and drew her face towards him and kissed her. The music washed over us; the brass-reinforced march that ends the third movement provoked serious applause even though the work was not over. When it did end - the Adagio lamentosa diminishes to pppp – the conductor held the orchestra and audience for a full 30 seconds before he dropped his hands (and the strings let their bows fall from their instruments) and the applause erupted in earnest.

The orchestra was the LA Philharmonic on tour to the east. The conductor was “The Dude”, Gustavo Dudamel, the 28 year-old who had grown up in Barquisimeto in Venezuela. Obviously he was a prodigious talent. Even I, for whom Tchaikovsky is not top of the list, was well and truly captured. The strings were like melted dark chocolate. It was the most magnificent string (and total orchestral) sound I'd ever heard. Jet powered, Christopher called it and I agreed: jet-powered dark chocolate. The Dude refused to take an individual bow. Instead he singled out instruments then stood in the orchestra as part of them while the audience gave him his rock-star reception.

The LA Phil in Chicago was fourth in a series of six concerts heard by a music-groupies tour led by Christopher Lawrence, a presenter on ABC FM. Twenty of us were on a sort of pub crawl (for "pub" read "orchestra") that had begun in Toronto a few days before.

In Toronto I'd heard the young Stefan Jackiw with the superlative Toronto Symphony play the Mozart violin concerto No. 3 then Elgar's first symphony. An international incident was only averted by immense self-control on my part. A couple four rows below me muttered all the way through the delicate lacework of the concerto. A couple immediately behind the visigoths decamped upwards to sit beside me to escape the noise. It turned out that the vandals had brought a picnic to a previous concert, one of the Casual Concert series and thought it was ok to do so this time. Jeans are one thing, salami sandwiches another.

So Toronto was memorable. What could top that? The magnificent L'Orchestre Symphonique De Montréal (French has priority in Montreal), that's what, with the photographable Kent Nagano. They gave a performance of The Creatures of Promethius in the form of a trial: text by Yann Martel for the prosecution, OSM for the defence. Promethius, in spite of the evidence stacked against him, went free and the orchestra, appropriately, played the Eroica. The next night in Montreal, it was Beethoven's First then Ninth - performances that left me (and most of us) gasping. Christopher, in response to those who weren't so sure, drew a distinction between the French style of Nagano with the OSM and the more familiar teutonic style of the Berlin Phil. The romantic in me leaned decidedly to the Gallic.

After breakfast each day  Christopher presented a background discussion about the music of the night's concert: it's origins, and significance. He'd been a student at The Conservatorium High School in Sydney before studying conducting. It showed in the depth of knowledge and critical analysis and understanding or orchestra sound production.

It was generally agreed that, in this orgy of high orchestral music making, the LA Phil in Chicago was the peak, that is until I heard the Chicago Phil in the beautiful, baroque Symphony Hall.

I was up in the Lower Balcony for the second of three concerts in Symphony Hall. I was stunned to see My Elderlies in the second front row which was accessible only to mountain goats. How on earth did they get down there without killing themselves? A young friend came to talk to them and they stood. They took some time to stand, but they managed. The friend left. Mr Elderly gently rubbed his wife's back as she sat. They heard three aggressively modern pieces, a suite derived from his film music, Redes, by Revueltas and the premier of a cello concerto by the Uzbek composer Yanov Yanovsky. The icy wind of the Steppes of Central Uzbekistan swept through its opening bars – and through my soul. Was it the composer or was it the soloist? Oh yes, it was Yo Yo Ma. In the riot of applause that followed composer, soloist and conductor hugged and kissed cheeks. How un-Australian!

But there was more. The orchestra settled down to play Shostakovitch's Sixth symphony. As the lights went down a late cellist wound his way into the back desk. And there Yo Yo Ma played cello and page-turner.

At the end, the standing ovation erupted instantly. Mr Elderly took off up the stairs, leaving Mrs Elderly to follow. Both of them were evidently a little more spritely than they appeared, but not much.

Out the front of the hall teenyboppers (age 15 to 35) had themselves photographed in front of The Dude's poster and Yo Yo's.

But the Fat Lady had not yet sung. Christopher had said quite a bit about "The Dude", and Yanov Yanovsky but little about the last concert, a Sunday afternoon recital by the young pianist Andreas Haefliger who played Mozart's piano sonatas K 300 and 301 including an Ala Turka Andantino that was brilliant but fluid – and technically faultless. His encore, which we worked hard to earn, was a Mozart adagio. There were no virtuoso pyrotechnics, just superb musicianship that extended and developed the Schubert sonata that had ended his recital.

There was one more surprise. After extended calls, standing ovations and exchanging assessments in the foyer I walked along Michigan Avenue. I turned left into W. Washington and there sat My Elderlies, fresh from the recital, waiting for their bus. Two evening concerts and an afternoon recital in three days. And a bus home.That's the sort of stamina I hope to have in my 90s.

I was a paying member of the Renaissance Tours “Orchestras of North America” tour.

Victorian Opera: The Play of Daniel,

The Play of Daniel

Victorian Opera

15 April 2012

The last time I heard a bass (singer) on stage  that I liked was … um … well, yeah. Balthasar erupted into this opera with a voice that would be quite at home in Boris. But there he was, some distance in time and space from 13^th century France where this liturgical drama was written. The Experimedia room of the State Library was just right for this street theatre production in the (270^o) round. And Robert Campbell’s voice was rich and deep. He sang the part with authority.

Charlotte Betts-Dean as Balthasar’s queen was simply superb. It’s reasonable to expect a young voice such as hers to show weak attack, the result of the singer being nervous or over-awed, and to squeak on high notes. Not a bit! Hers is a lovely rich voice and it gave her the assurance and gravity the part demanded. Along with Tomas Dalton as the prince – and Redundant Resources Manager towards the end of the second act – these three dominated the opera. Until …

… enter Daniel (Tobias Glasner). This knock-out baritone was utterly at ease with this difficult part (but they all had hideously difficult parts to sing). There was no bravado here, no arrogance, just an ordinary Jewish slave, far from home, quietly secure in his trust his of his god – and his voice.

If that were not enough we had a range of minor parts who were by no means left-overs and a chorus who were disciplined within an inch of their young lives. The chorus, perhaps most of all the musicians in this production, gave the lie to the usual qualified praise, “They were very good for young people”. They weren’t good. They were superb.

I can’t remember hearing music that more effectively portrayed war than this score. The approach of Darius – confusion, horror, death – was painted first by the Nefes Ensemble in complex cross rhythms of percussion and strings then powerful cannon bursts centuries before gunpowder, or was it heads being split open? But when Darius did appear did he work? Thomas Kruyt was a 50 kg Mede devoid of the serious sword-wielding musculature expected of an ancestor of modern Iranians. The part was pitched somewhere between tenor and counter-tenor so casting a boofer with sculptured black beard would have been even more incongruous.

The Play of Daniel was a courageous choice – mediaeval, Middle Eastern, almost set-less, mostly in Latin and with a cast of young people – but its courage that we have come to expect of Richard Gill. And this opera – that was not the romantic Puccini or supra-dramatic Verdi or comedic Rossini that we are so used to – worked. The audience applause and the comments I heard around me and those to Mr Gill as the audience left said so.

Firebird Trio: Brave New World

Brave New World

Firebird Trio

4 April 2012

So we rolled in expecting a nice quiet ride in Firebird’s vintage Bentley. Wrong! This was indeed brave new world stuff – for the Trio and for us.

Aaron Copland’s "Vitebsk for Piano Trio" had no hints of “Appalachian Spring”. It’s been described as ‘from the early "austere" period of the composer's development’. I can't say I liked it but I’d liked to hear it again, this time to look for the Jewish theme.

I decided Charles Ives had been to a State Fair to research his trio and stood outside the music tents. In one, a gospel choir, in the next negro spirituals, in anothert, a woman paying SATB hymns and folk songs - all playing at once. But his trio is more than randomised quotes. It is clever, biting, witty, dissonant, wonderful music. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spedxmS37Vk&noredirect=1

Wednesday night's crowd roared approval and I even called, sotto voce, “bravo” (f) – or should it be “brava” (m) or even “bravissima” (vg) because here Firebird were in absolute control and gave us spine-tingling music. But was it ok to laugh at Rock of Ages, for eg? The movement is labelled TSIAJ but it was clearly horrendous to play. Roger Jonsson couldn’t smile like the others. He just staggered off for a couple of shots of akvavit.

Benjamin Martin’s trio take of Stravinski’s Firebird was superbly written and superbly played This was not, like so many trios, piano with string continuo. Like the Ives that preceded it, the was no place for anyone of them to hide. Again, I was convinced they knew it, they loved it, the made it sing.

Beethoven Op. 1 No. 1 was the other piece they made sing. It was obviously BNW for the Viennese – not Hayden, not Mozart – but for us it is familiar. Firebird made it new again, and here too we heard all the lyrical - if acerbic - beauty.

The encore, at the beginning, was an erudite soliloquy by Dr Barry Jones (who else would do?) on the Huxley and associated dynasties.

Technically, Firebird were very much at home with the music as was Dr Jones with the history. And both were a joy to listen to. More! Bravo(a)!

Melbourne Chamber Orchestra: Jupiter

Jupiter 

Melbourne Chamber Orchestra

Sunday April 2 2012

MCO, aka Hennessy’s Lot, is simply superb. Today they were crisp clean and rich with the skill – and musicianship – to dim. the end of a phrase to that of a strand of gossamer: the Hennessy trademark.

How long has it been since The Marriage of Figaro overture made you sit up? The tapestry was all there.

And then some of Beethoven’s most magnificent writing matched by some of Melbourne’s most magnificent soloists: Katherine Lukey playing violin, Michelle Wood playing cello and Timothy Young playing piano. The two strings are core members of MCO and the piano from ANAM. So all three playing were superbly equipped to take us into the depths of Beethoven’s soul and to light the star shells that his darkness cannot contain.

Mr MCO has a policy, evidently, of giving the solo gigs to young people and it is wonderful to know that, should one of today’s lot have come down with the dreaded lurgi, there were others behind them who were eminently capable of stepping forward: Helen Ayres and Young Mister Dahlenberg to name but two. And for me the twin French horns – liquid gold – and twin bassoons – liquid dark chocolate – were stand-out performances; accurate, controlled, and restrained when needed. This was gasp-inducing stuff; music performance that grabbed me in the gut. The rest of the DameEMHall audience thought so to, bursting into applause at the end of the first movement. When a staid Melbourne audience defies Proper Concert Behaviour you know you’ve heard a winner. What next; a standing ovation? Shudder!

Then Mozart’s symphony no. 41, often called Jupiter but properly subtitled Tympani allenamento and John Arcaro was simply superb (to coin a cliché). The carpet of sound was produced by beautiful, beautiful playing; sensitive, powerful and, again, restrained so nothing of Mozart’s genius was lost in hurried phrases or mushy, twiddly bits (as they are known to us AMEB Grade 5 graduates).

The encore – the third movement, Minuet, of Mozart’s string quartet no. 15 – was carefully chosen to show off Mr MCO’s lot; their trademark string phrasing again.

Mr Hennessy’s violin is the only one I’ve ever seen that always takes a bow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXw-k0Dkd5I

Victorian Opera: Albert Herring

Albert Herring (Benjamin Britten)

Victorian  Opera 

Saturday 23 June 2012

AH had a well-selected, evenly-matched cast – and that includes the kids – with superb voices. They produced wonderful depth of tone, great articulation and spine-tingling ensemble work, and that included the numbingly difficult stuff in the last scene. The direction was sensible and unobtrusive - and not clever -  so that the cast produced plausible acting. The innovative set painted the essentials of the scene and it worked. It was matched by equally clever lighting. And the associate artist, the “pit orchestra” (Orchestra Victoria) was sensitively directed by Tom Wood. Its playing was world class, as it its standard.

To my mind, Albert (Jacob Caine) was the stand-out performance: a wonderful, young tenor. I hope to hear more from him. He sang with skill, musicianship and assurance.

AH was another top notch VO performance - fine singing and wonderful staging. The whole affair left its up-itself competition ponderously lurching way back down the track.