Intermezzo

What's on this autumn at the Royal Opera House

Booking for Covent Garden's autumn season opens for members next week (details here), and for the public on 1 July.

The season opener is Don Giovanni. Francesca Zambello's flashy, hollow production is nothing special, but two great casts compensate. The first, conducted by Charles Mackerras, includes Simon Keenlyside, Marina Poplavskaya, Ramón Vargas, Joyce DiDonato, Kyle Ketelsen and Miah Persson. Antonio Pappano conducts the second, which includes Mariusz Kwiecen, Patrizia Ciofi, Ian Bostridge, Emma Bell, Lorenzo Regazzo and Rebecca Evans - some 'B' list!

I'm finding it hard to get excited about yet another revival of the tediously cinematic (and over 30 year old) La Fanciulla del West  - complete with real snow. But Pappano's conducting, and the cast includes Eva-Maria Westbroek and José Cura, so who knows.

David Alden's production of Cavalli's La Calisto arrives from Munich with Ivor Bolton conducting and many of the Munich cast, including Sally Matthews, Veronique Gens, Umberto Chiummo and Markus Werba. It was a huge hit with the picky Müncheners, always a good sign.

Here's the Bayerische Staatsoper video (and why can't the ROH put together vids like this?):

October sees an inexplicable 4 night revival of La Bohème mere weeks after its July outing. The cast full of wtf's and tbc's suggests a last minute stopgap - testy tenors? impregulated sopranos? who knows...

The big story for autumn is the return of Juan Diego Flórez to Covent Garden, this time for 6 performances of Matilde de Shabran. It's the role that gave him his first big break, and Aleksandra Kursak joins him in this Pesaro production. Who cares if it's not Rossini's greatest? JDF is back in London!

The holiday treat is Hänsel und Gretel, a new Leiser and Caurier production, with two exceptional casts. One is led by Angelika Kirchschlager and Diana Damrau and conducted by the awesome Sir Colin Davis, and the second features Alice Coote (a definitive Hänsel at the Met) and Camilla Tilling conducted by Robin Ticciati.

Outside the main house, Philip Glass's The Sound of a Voice comes to the Linbury Studio from Opera Theater Pittsburgh for 3 nights in July, and later in the season there's a new opera from Michael Berkeley.

Of the various talks and other bitty things going on, the most interesting look to be a masterclass led by Jane Henschel on 7 November, and Joyce DiDonato 'in conversation' on 17 September - questions at the ready.

Covent Garden's new old Simon Boccanegra gets the FF factor

Simon Boccanegra - Royal Opera House, 4 May 2008

After the last disappointment (which wasn't the first), I swore off Sunday matinees at Covent Garden. But this ended up as the only Simon Boccanegra performance which fitted in with my schedule. And at least it featured the unexpected bonus of a starry late substitute in Ferruccio Furlanetto.

This time, the problem wasn't so much the performance as the production itself. Inexplicably revived after ten very understandable years on the shelf, it's like a Primark version of Zeffirelli's Metstravaganzas. The gorgeous Caravaggio-coloured costumes and simple multipurpose set aren't objectionable, just rather unimaginative. But it's desperately short on dramatic purpose, virtually inert, reliant totally on whatever sparks of enlightenment the singers can dredge up if it's to have any life at all.

It reminded me of those semi-staged concert performances which sink or swim in line with the performers' enthusiasm to step out from behind the music stands. Had the singers been abandoned to their own devices here too? There was no lack of enthusiasm, and once they'd moved beyond the cliched cape-flouncing monotony of the first half, the second was far more vital and engaging - but most of the credit here must go to Verdi and Boito for packing the last hour with an disproportionate share of death and denouement.

The late replacements Anja Harteros and Ferruccio Furlanetto had the least rehearsal time and the most impact. There was nothing girlish about Harteros. Her Amelia had a powerful dramatic presence and a big-boned sound, veering towards the coarse-grained a little too often. She wiped the floor with every man present, including Lucio Gallo, a hugely likeable but rather lightweight Boccanegra, and Marcus Haddock, an energetic but desperately un-Italian Adorno.

Ferruccio Furlanetto is of course a complete legend. It seemed almost as if he'd been dropped on to the stage to show the lesser mortals how it's done. He imposed his presence in the subtlest way, without any attention-grabbing antics, grave and noble. Impeccable legato and the the most elegant colouring made his Fiesco a delight to the ear. A pity for anyone not there that he's only scheduled for this one performance, but I'm now looking forward even more to his Philip in next month's Don Carlo.

And there was always the music. John Eliot Gardiner isn't the obvious Verdi choice, but he drew a lucid and polished performance from the orchestra, with the sort of candlelit warmth that few of his fellow period practice dudes can muster.

And all the passion and excitement was there for the big moments, the effect magnified in fact by his comparative restraint elsewhere. The orchestra played immaculately for him, scarcely a wobble, and he was remarkably attentive to the singers, every entrance neatly cued, and a perfect balance between stage and pit.

And check out that opium smokin jacket!  A Shanghai Tang velvet pyjama I think, but how practical and elegant.

Schrott out; Calleja in

Thanks to reader Georgiana for pointing out that Cadogan Hall has scheduled new artists for the June 11th concert which Erwin Schrott cancelled.

They're tenor Joseph Calleja and his wife, soprano Tatiana Lisnic.

Calleja's last appearance in London was an impressive one, opposite Renee Fleming in the Royal Opera House's Thaïs. And he'll be back partnering la Renay at Covent Garden next year in La Traviata.

So £12 at Cadogan Hall sounds like a bargain.

Die tote Stadt in Vienna

Die tote Stadt - Wiener Staatsoper, 2 May 2008
and
Die Korngolds - Jüdisches Museum Wien

To Vienna for Willy Decker's production of Korngold's Die tote Stadt, first seen at the 2004 Salzburg Festival, and shortly to be shipped over to the Royal Opera House in 2009 - amazingly the UK debut for this nearly 90 year old masterpiece.

I prepped myself with an afternoon at the Jewish Museum's Korngolds exhibition, which looks at Erich Korngold's career with a particular emphasis on his father Julius's influence/interference/involvement, hence the plural title. There are photographs, manuscripts and a few artifacts in the museum's tiny rooms (pic left is the Hollywood section), but the music is the real draw. A wide selection is available to listen to, including some fascinating obscurities amongst the better known opera and film music.

The exhibition ends on 18 May, but a catalogue is available (price 22€), in German with English translation. Attached is a 16 track CD, also available separately (12€), which includes this 1952 recording of Elizabeth Schwarzkopf singing Glück das mir verblieb from Die tote Stadt:

Die tote Stadt is centred round an extended dream sequence which makes Paul, obsessed by memories of his dead wife Marie and wanting to believe she has been reincarnated as the dancer Marietta, finally realise that he needs to leave the past behind and move on with his life.

The production is designed around a simple uncluttered set, a room in Paul's house, just walls, chairs and a giant portrait of Marie (actually the blown-up face from John Singer Sargent's portrait of Miss Elsie Palmer, left).

As Paul falls asleep, the back wall disappears to reveal an identical room behind, with another Paul sitting there. Walls and floors slide around drunkenly as the dream progresses, but it's always anchored in the details of reality. This is no escapist fantasy but Paul's critical examination of his daily life through the liberating medium of the dream - psychoanalysis without the couch. The portrait pops up again and again, as does Paul's other precious relic of his wife, the dead Marie's 'braid' - here, presumably for the benefit of the back rows, a huge blonde tranny wig. It's all brilliantly simple - by homing in on a few key images, the fiddly hallucinatory details flash past and momentum is maintained.

Philippe Auguin's Vienna conducting debut hardly set the place alight, but it was solid enough, if rather stodgy, though he did manage some translucency in the densely textured scoring. His big mistake was to misjudge the acoustic. Vienna's shallow pit spreads and magnifies the sound, and he simply allowed the orchestra to play too loud too often, overwhelming every single one of the singers at various points. My own ears were physically hurting through most of the first scene, though I was halfway back, so I can only imagine the musicians were either earplugged or already half-deaf.

Even Klaus Florian Vogt, who normally powers through anything like a drill, struggled to be heard at times. His lyrical and enigmatic Paul anchored the production, unflagging despite his near-constant presence on stage. The tone was unfailingly beautiful, barely shaded - but perhaps a result of the passive characterisation imposed by the production. And if you want to know why most of my Vogt photos are fuzzy, it's because the floor was shaking with the applause at every curtain call he took.

In the triple role of the virtuous Marie, the carefree flapper 'real' Marietta and the monstrous 'dream/nightmare' Marietta, Angela Denoke proved what a wonderful and versatile actress she is. Not to mention fearless and completely lacking in vanity - she spent most of the evening bald, after throwing her blonde wig in Paul's face, a rebuke to his obsession with Marie's braid. Vocally, she had more power than sheer beauty, but this was no disadvantage with Auguin's ear-bending volume. She convinced dramatically and nailed all the notes, which was as much as could be asked of her in the circumstances.

Markus Eiche, Paul's friend Frank, had the smallest voice, and suffered most from the aural assault. He was more audible in his dream-sequence alterego of Fritz the Pierrot - so much so that I wonder if the set for the opening and closing scenes had some sort of sound-absorbing effect that accentuated M.Auguin's heavy metal approach. Janina Baechle's solid Brigitta was yet another impressive performance.

Whether next year's Covent Garden cast slot quite as perfectly into their roles remains to be seen, but with Ingo Metzmacher scheduled to conduct, maybe at least they'll be audible.

This is the Staatsoper's promo video - featuring the previous cast, which included Angela Denoke:

At last - a cancellation to cheer about

The Royal Opera House's cancellation-plagued Simon Boccanegra adds yet another name to the lengthy list of no-shows. This time it's Orlin Anastassov, who's pulled out of the opening performance on 4 May due to ill-health.

The silver lining to this cloud is the replacement Fiesco - the mighty Ferruccio Furlanetto, conveniently in town rehearsing for next month's Don Carlo. If his performance is anything like the one I saw him give last year in Vienna, watch out - he may just blow everyone else off the stage. 

Boulez at the Barbican

LSO/Boulez - Barbican, 30 April 2008

Bartók's Concerto for Two Pianos and Percussion is such a rarity on the London schedules that it's welcome no matter who's performing it.

But having been promised Lang Lang and Hélène Grimaud, I was a little disappointed to find them substituted without warning or explanation by Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Tamara Stefanovich. Aimard is a great favourite of mine, he excels in Bartók, and his performance with frequent partner Stefanovich was predictably exemplary. But I still itch to hear what the man who said "If you like hip hop, then you will like Bartók" would have made of it.

The percussion soloists, the LSO's own Neil Percy and Nigel Thomas, were immaculate and unflashy, and Pierre Boulez pulled the whole thing together tautly. If it didn't have the impact of the pared-down Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion from which it is drawn, that's wasn't down to the performance, but to Bartók's sprawling arrangements, which tend to grab ideas out of the hands of the soloists only to lose them in the orchestra. That Boulez got a far warmer reception on his entrance than he did at the end of this piece reflects entirely on the material.

Boulez's thoughtful programme placed more piano work rearranged for orchestra, his own Notations, at the end of the evening.

With orchestration these become almost unrecognisable, expanded in all directions. The tablecloth size of the conductor's score, running at about two bars per massive page judging from the manic speed of Boulez's flipping, evidenced the intricacy of his arrangements.

The orchestra too was massive, extra percussion and all hands on deck, but every detail was crystal clear, and there was all the focus and momentum the Bartók lacked.

Notation II was the brief and explosive finale, reprised scrappily but even more exuberantly as an encore.

In between these blockbusters came Schoenberg's Five Orchestral Pieces, sounding almost cosy in Boulez's affectionate reading and Stravinsky's Le Chant du rossignol, light-footed and sparkling, with stunning, perfectly judged flute, violin and trumpet solos.

Boulez returns to the Barbican on 11 May with Michelle De Young for Duke Bluebeard's Castle and Schoenberg's Die glückliche Hand - not to be missed.

Daleks exterminate Berlin Philharmonic at Proms box office

It's only a few days into the Proms advance booking period, and already the Dalek-packed Dr Who family Prom on 27 July has sold out, unlike others including the Berlin Philharmonic's.

Although the Berlin press widely regard Sir Simon Rattle as an enemy alien, he's been unable to translate that into box office with the same success as the Daleks.

For anyone who's missed out on advance tickets for the Dr Who Prom, day tickets (standing) will as ever be available, and it's also worth checking for returns on the Royal Albert Hall Proms website (not up yet) closer to the day.

Thomas Ades creates the world

London Sinfonietta/Ades - Royal Festival Hall, 28 April 2008

This (^) spectacularly apocalyptic sunset ceilinged wet and miserable London as the premiere of Thomas Ades's new piano concerto, In Seven Days, drew to a close in the Royal Festival Hall. EMI marketing couldn't have invented a better backdrop for the intermission. It echoed not just the new work's subject matter, the Creation story, but also the specially commissioned video which accompanied it, an assemblage of abstracted images drawn from nature and architecture.

Here's what the stage looked like at the start, showing the six video screens and part of the orchestra. A few more musicians were tucked away behind the piano :

Ades conducted, standing (hiding?) behind the piano and sporting a pair of enormous cans. It wasn't clear if these were just for the video synchronisation or whether the speakers at each side of the stage added any subtle pre-recording to the London Sinfonietta's amplified performance.

For the first few moments, I wondered if someone had popped the wrong DVD into the puter. The dark lapping waves which filled the screens were so similar to the ones used in Birtwistle's Minotaur it was uncanny. As the images slowly changed and became more complex, I have to confess brain overload. I had no choice - I had to stop looking. I glanced up now and again to see leafless trees, strange bubbly things and dancing sticks, but I simply couldn't watch and listen properly simultaneously. Although it's described as a 'video-ballet', the music is just too rich and complex to be listened to with anything less than 100% attention. Ades's music is more demanding than it appears, and soft focus reveals only the pastel prettiness of the surfaces.

Although it's nominally a piano concerto, the piano is silent or woven into the orchestra most of the time. Only towards the end of the work does it break free for a couple of brief and dazzling virtuoso explosions.

It's structured in seven sections, corresponding to the seven days of creation. A tiny string figure repeats and mutates organically into ever more complex and lushly orchestrated forms. There are nods to Reich in the relentless figurations, Elgar in moments of dreamy pastoralism, Mahler in the tapestry textures and the big bang that closes the first movement. A sunny glow radiates pervasively - this is the story of birth and life, and the prickling irony of some of Ades's earlier work has been laid aside. It's melodic, memorable and overwhelmingly accessible. Even now I can (superficially) recall large chunks - this is where the 'ballet' description really hits home. I was entranced throughout.

The audience, filled out with bussed-in student groups, but younger than the usual anyway, was excitable and enthusiastic. The ovation was massive and I should also point out the few seconds of rapt silence before it started - lending weight to my theory that it's the older and supposedly more 'experienced' audience members who display the worst concert manners.

A chunk of the audience didn't return after the interval, so they missed a blasting performance of Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians by the London Sinfonietta and Synergy Vocals. To be picky, the sound scattered a little in the Royal Festival Hall's still-difficult acoustic, and the London Sinfonietta don't have quite the telepathic polish of Steve Reich's own band of sneakered grandads, but the magic vitality of the performance swept petty criticisms aside.

A bijou venuette or stadium opera - your choice, Londoners

Today's Evening Standard takes a breather from Ken-bashing to report on London's newest concert hall, the bijou King's Place, behind Kings Cross station. It's due to open on 1 October, and will share the building with, amongst others, the London Sinfonietta, the OAE and the Guardian.

There's a minifest to open with, and later on, Haydn and Mozart operas. No formal schedules are available yet, though I've seen the odd date noted on individual artists' websites.

At 420 seats, capacity is similar to the Wigmore Hall, though judging from the photo above, the stage is a little larger. Its success may depend on who can be lured into appearing -- although the Wigmore and St Luke's can sell out instantly for popular artists, seats can be far from filled for the less well-known. Celebrity, it's all about celebrity.

At the other end of the scale, the 20,000 seater O2 is going classical, starting with a production of Carmina Burana 'featuring light projections and fireworks'. Carmen and Aida are planned for next year. It may sound ridiculous to stage an opera in what equates to a football stadium but the Verona Festival proves there's a market for it. I think I'll stick with Covent Garden though. South of the river'n'that.

Royal Opera House ticket price increases examined **!!!Warning - Mathematics Ahead !!!**

The Royal Opera House recently deflected criticism of next season's price increases by claiming it was raising top ticket prices to allow for more cheaper seats. It was impossible to check that claim at the time because the new prices weren't available. But now they're in the latest About the House magazine (scanned below), so I'm going to have a go.

It's surprisingly hard to quantify the increases in a clear and fair way. This is mainly because the Royal Opera House charges different prices for different productions. Generally, the longer the opera and the bigger the stars, the higher the price. And because the mix of higher and lower priced productions varies year to year, you can't simply add them all up and compare the totals - otherwise the a year with a greater proportion of shorter operas will look cheaper overall, and vice versa.

Fortunately, Covent Garden have gifted an easy point of comparison in La Bohème, which is to be performed this season, in July, and again next season, in October.

So here's what I did to compare this season's prices with the next. I took next season's price list and worked out the number of seats available for La Bohème in each area of the auditorium, and the average price of a seat in each area (weighted to reflect that the various price categories within each area, and the number of seats in each category).

I did the same for the current season La Bohème, using the ticket prices found here.

Then I compared the two. Here are the summarised results:

So what do the numbers show? Firstly that the average price of a ticket in general terms has risen 7%, from £95 to £102. That's nearly twice the rate of inflation.

And the customers bearing the brunt of this increase are mostly those at the bottom end, with amphitheatre tickets going up an average of 10%, slips tickets 32%, and standing places a staggering 65%. Only the pricy stalls circle tickets (now £117 on average) actually drop in average price, largely due to downgrading of the less desirable seats. And although the headline top price tickets have risen 11%, from £175 to £195, some orchestra stalls tickets at the back have been made cheaper, so the overall price rise for orchestra stalls is only 9%

What about the number of 'cheap' tickets available? I calculate there will be 23% fewer tickets under £50 for next season's La Bohème (846 in October vs 1104 in July), although in fairness there will be 20% more under £30 (437 vs 364). Only 19% of the total places available cost under £30.

Those findings are not in line with Tony Hall's contradictory (and possibly misquoted) comments in the Guardian that "a quarter of our seats will cost £30 or less" and "40% will be priced at £30 or below". Nor his comment that "seat prices taken as a whole are due to rise in line with inflation".

Of course you could take a different point of comparison and perhaps get different results - any readers fancy taking a bash at it? But I think my calculations are fair and reasonable, in contrast with Tony Hall's, which are (as they've been reported) limited and confusing.

Gergiev double dip

LSO/Gergiev - Barbican, 20 and 21 April 2008

I've just realised it's Sunday and I have a whole week's concert going undocumented, so I'd better get cracking. Fortunately Sunday and Monday were the same, so that cuts it down a bit.

You don't often get the chance to catch the same concert two nights in a row. But Gergiev's Mahler™ cycle - or maybe just Gergiev - is a big enough draw to sell out the Barbican twice, well in advance.  Plus it was being recorded for Radio 3 broadcast and for CD release, and they always like a back up for that.

I hadn't intended to do both, but the first (booked like last year or something) was so good it pulled me back for the repeat (a lucky last-minute return). I had to settle for a front corner seat second time round, but a clear side-on view of teh maestro at work was some payback for the lopsided sound.

The big number was Mahler's 2nd Symphony, but before that Strauss's Metamorphosen revealed a hand-picked crack team of LSO strings mining a vein of unaccustomed poignancy, a curiously effective complement to the characteristic meaty LSO sound. Strauss was 80 when he wrote this, as the measured resignation of Gergiev's reading reflected perfectly. His fluttering hands (batons are for wusses) strayed upward now and then to smooth errant strands back into his threadbare combover. Now, you can't attend to hair and music simultaneously, and he notably let it all fly in the Mahler, so whether Gergiev's concentration was 100% who can say.

Perhaps it's simply that Metamorphosen doesn't necessarily need conducting on stage at all if it's rehearsed properly. But it was still something special, and notably on both nights the London Symphony Chorus chose to come out and listen from their choir seats.

Mahler's 'Resurrection' Symphony was utterly convincing, the second night's performance better by some measure than the first. The dark thunder of the opening funeral march thrilled and terrified, and Gergiev's extended pause (more like one minute than the five prescribed by Mahler) was a vital breather before the ironic sentimentality of the second movement's nearly-dances.

Gergiev was big on effects - pauses milked to the max, dynamics straining the ears in both directions - essential inflection and punctuation in the wall of sound. The energy levels dipped only when the first soloist, mezzo Zlata Bulycheva made her effortful and rather routine entry in the fourth movement. The other soloist, soprano Elena Mosuc, was equally subdued if more radiant. The London Symphony Chorus, performing without scores for the dramatic final movement, took all the vocal honours, rehearsed to perfection, and immaculately attentive to Gergiev's every whim.

This was the point at which my second night front corner seat became a real disadvantage. The offstage brass, a potent and magical feature of the last movement from the centre of the auditorium, was a challenge to the orchestra when heard from a position in between the two teams. It was like battle of the bands, with the smaller group often winning. It wasn't quite enough to ruin the night - just rather bizarre.

The first night was received enthusiastically, but the second managed a standing ovation - not a frequent occurrence at the Barbican, but I think a genuine and spontaneous gesture of appreciation.

Royal Opera House provides Shameless photoshop opportunity

The Telegraph reports that the Royal Opera House is in talks to create a new £250m opera house oop north. The location is East Manchester, the setting of the TV series Shameless and the home of Manchester City.

Tony Hall, the ROH's chief executive, said he was "excited about how this might progress our programme of getting the work of the Royal Opera House to as wide an audience as possible". Spreading Covent Garden production costs and fulfilling the diversity remit wouldn't hurt either.

Ongoing financing isn't mentioned - though it should be pointed out that ticket income only covers a third of the Royal Opera House's costs, even at £210 a pop . The battle may be not simply to get a new house built, but to secure further funding, adequate to ensure it has a viable future.

Anna Netrebko - "We have very strong muscles down there....it is easy for sopranos to give birth"

"pitiless self-assurance"
"throttled pianissimi"
"strangled spasms of coughing"
"tearful ovations"
"fans with their tongues out"

Anna Netrebko tells the Guardian she really has it all.

And have they, haven't they? Is 'husband' a figure of speech, or has she secretly tied the knot with Erwin Schrott?

Sadly, the Guardian is more interested in what she'll be wearing at the Classical Brits (a 'maternity dress' is the bold guess) than pursuing her neatly-dropped reference, so we'll have to wait on the Big Question.

Simon Keenlyside explains how he fell for the missus

The great Simon Keenlyside, the man who puts the magic in the Magic Flute, tells the Western Mail how he met the wife, the Royal Ballet's Zenaida Yanowsky:

“I was at the Royal Opera House with the Magic Flute and I fell through the trap door and broke myself in pieces. I was hungry and went for a dinner upstairs, waiting for the doctor to come, and there she was.”

Sadly, Covent Garden's most celebrated pecs may not be displayed quite so frequently in future. He hints that now the couple are expecting their first child, he may be spending less time at Covent Garden and more on his Welsh farm: “Wales is home” .

Meltdown melts down Southbank Centre puters

How bleeding typical. For me, the only real point in shelling out for a pricy Southbank Centre membership is to access the priority booking for the annual Meltdown Festival. Three hours after booking opened I was finally able to access the ticket screen - only to find the one concert I really wanted to book for is now sold out. And forget about phoning up - after holding for half an hour on their premium rate line (cost - a further £3), I gave up.

Even the creaky old Royal Opera House can manage a proper, fair queuing system for member bookings these days. The Southbank know from experience this is a high-demand event - so why can't they handle it?

Juan Diego Flórez and 'that' encore at Covent Garden

If an untruth is repeated enough times, does it become a fact? Do events occur only if there's a journalist there to observe them?

Today the Guardian repeats (no doubt in good faith) what I've read many times before - that Juan Diego Flórez did not perform an encore in the 2007 La Fille du Régiment at Covent Garden. And maybe that's true of the press night.

But I was there for the mid-run 20 January performance - where the delightful and generous JDF graced an ecstatic audience with a repeat of the Ah! mes amis cabaletta. OK, it was at the curtain call, not straight after his first delivery, so it wasn't a true aria bis. But it was a repeat all the same. Isn't that an encore? Just wanted to clear that up.

Jonas Kaufmann in the Royal Opera House chat seat

In a late addition to the Covent Garden schedule, the wonderful Jonas Kaufmann (Cavaradossi in the forthcoming Tosca, and the main reason for seeing it) will be interviewed in front of a small audience at the Royal Opera House Clore Studio on 14 May.

The interviewer is Edward Seckerson, whose BBC bio notes a penchant for "amateur skin bashing". Whatevs.

Tickets are £10, here.

Jonas replaces the previously-advertised Nina Stemme, who after the usual 'careful consideration' decided she'd rather do Brünnhilde in Vienna than honour her commitment to the Royal Opera House's Simon Boccanegra.

Donde está Erwin Schrott ?

O noes!!! I am devastated by Jessica Duchen's latest lid-blowing news - Erwin Schrott has cancelled next month's Cadogan Hall recital.

Contract busting? The words "hearsay", "lawyers" and "bargepole" flutter so noisily between my ears they drown out speculation.

But I note with interest that the future Mrs Schrott, Anna Netrebko, is expected at the Paris Opera on the night in question, June 11.

Dogs and dark horses - ENO new season booking opens

Booking opens today for ENO's autumn season. If you're one of their Friends, that is. Enemies must wait until May 19. Seats rarely sell out, so there's not a lot of point in hitting the credit card right now unless you're ultra-picky about where you sit. A subscription discount of 15-20% for booking multiple shows expires on September 1.

There are plenty of new productions - though the unrevivable ropiness of half the existing ones must factor in here as much as a quest for innovation.

Talking of ropy productions, last season's Aida returns, with much the same unimpressive cast. This is one I'm giving a miss -- fabulous costumes, but little else to recommend it. Another one I'll probably skip is the 999th revival of Jonathan Miller's Barber of Seville. Both sadly second-rate and so generic  -- why not crawl out of the ROH's shadow and resuscitate The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant instead?

The rest look a lot more promising. Christopher Alden's new production of Handel's Partenope is conducted by Christian Curnyn, who made an excellent recording a couple of years back. With a cast including Rosemary Joshua, Patricia Bardon, Christine Rice, lestyn Davies and John Mark Ainsley, this should be a highlight.

The autumn season opens with a new Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci  -- not usually something I'd be that excited about, but director Richard Jones should be able to sprinkle some fabulosity around. Peter Auty and Mary Plazas are in the cast.

The all-bloke Boris Godunov is again not a favourite, but it's a new production (Tim Albery), and Peter Rose plays Boris, so I shall be paying a visit.

The dark horse may be the autumn season closer, Vaughan Williams's one-act Riders to the Sea, directed by Fiona Shaw - an opera newb, but unlike some on the cards, she has at least seen a few.

Guitars, yawns and Goldfrapp

Xuefei Yang - Wigmore Hall, 16 April 2008
Handel's Flavio - Barbican, 17 April 2008
Goldfrapp - Royal Festival Hall, 18 April 2008

Out of the 800+ events in the China Now cultural festival taking place in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics, few are musical. Does this say something about the place of music in Chinese culture? At the Wigmore Hall on Wednesday, the deodorant-ad blandness of the Chinese music which dominated guitarist Xuefei Yang's recital programme suggested there's not much to shout about. Her immaculate technique was wasted on the limp, westernised folk song arrangements. OK, so there's not much of a concert repertoire for the classical guitarist, but Fei's own arrangements of piano music by Granados and Albeniz, tucked away at the tail end of the evening, indicated a more imaginative way forward.

I don't often walk out of a concert at the interval, but one hour of Handel's Flavio at the Barbican on Thursday was enough. Soloists Iestyn Davies, Karina Gauvin, James Gilchrist, James Rutherford, Robin Blaze and Maite Beaumont were on fire, but every ounce of energy they put in was sucked out by Christopher Hogwood's tepid, routine direction of the Academy of Ancient Music. More like a funeral than an opera.

Goldfrapp brought a bit of olde England to the Royal Festival Hall on Friday, with band (including harpist) and twelve piece string section in all-white morris dancer kit, mic stands dressed as mini-maypoles and a giant wicker backdrop. Alison herself was half Twiggy, half Demis Roussos, in a pink satin mini-caftan with matching modesty shorts and flat tan pixie boots. The window dressing reflects the pastoral whimsy of their latest album, which featured heavily, alongside oldies Utopia, Paper Bag, You Never Know, Satin Chic, Ooh La La, Number One, and Strict Machine. Alison chivvied us out of our comfy seats and on to our well-behaved feet for the last few songs. And there was a surprise ending - kazoos passed round the front stalls so we could join in with Happiness. I do love a bit of audience participation.

Below, a video of Happiness from the concert (not great quality), plus some photos.