Intermezzo

ENO Carmen Dress Rehearsal

Carmen (Dress Rehearsal) - ENO, 26 September 2007

Articles like The CCTV Carmen and snippets dangled on the ENO's Carmen website warned that director Sally Potter would be abandoning the traditional cigars'n'castanets approach. So I wasn't surprised at the opening set - gigantic front-projected cctv images fade to reveal a portakabin in front of a dark curved marble wall, implying some unspecified menace lurking behind.

The portakabin holds the security guards that Potter has substituted for Bizet's soldiers. Carmen and the other women work in some unlabelled drudgery behind the wall, but their slapper heels and minis give a hint. The street urchins of the original become child jeebus-freaks and breakdancers - you get the picture. Only toreador Escamillo is spared a recasting. In this dark world, cruelty and violence seem inevitable.

The sets are strikingly simple and creatively lit, coherence lent by their clean lined geometry and rippled surfaces. The second act is set in a blue-lit chrome cocktail bar, the third on a covered bridge suspended over the stage, and the last outside the curved wall of the bull ring (cue beery British tourists exclaiming 'it's bloody hot here'). Traditionalists will be pleased to note there's no knicker-flashing, camouflage netting, etc - Potter is out to illuminate, not to shock.

Movement and blocking are economically choreographed. Even when there's a crowd on stage, it never looks cluttered. That is, until the tango and hip hop dancers pop up. Gifted with these amazingly skilled performers, it seems as if Potter felt obliged to include them in nearly every scene. Sometimes it works, sometimes, despite their breathtaking talent, they're a bit of a distraction. As is the gratuitous dog led across the stage by a security guard in the third act.

The ENO's English language-only policy works to Potter's advantage, allowing the libretto to be shoehorned into the production concept by a very free translation. This is really the only area where she's taken significant liberties - despite the relocation and modernisation, the characterisation and narrative are entirely recognisable.

I'm guessing the translation caused a lot of headaches. It still feels unfinished and clumsy in places. Disparities between the sung text and the surtitles hint that it must have been revised up to the last minute. Incidentally and disappointingly, the surtitles prove vital here for comprehending many of the singers. This is not the first ENO production where this has been a problem, and it's something they should really make more of an effort to address. Most of the compelling reasons for staging operas in English evaporate when you can't understand a bleeding word.

The ENO orchestra just keep getting better. They were on top form here, with a perfectly judged (but perhaps controversial) degree of Anglo-Saxon restraint from Edward Gardner in the pit matching the low key of the production.

It's not fair to make final judgments on singers based on a dress rehearsal, but it seems the casting choices are good ones, and there were no real disappointments. Carmen, poor Alice Coote, seemed still to be suffering from the virus which rendered her voiceless last week, and wisely held back here to save herself for the full performances. Whether she can bring the sensuality and passion the role demands remains to be seen - her reading here was opaque and subdued, making her switches of affection seem more imposed than selected.

The clean, accurate singing of Julian Gavin as Don José had a simple dignity, even if his final descent into madness and murder was too restrained to convince. The splendidly beehived Elena Xanthoudakis (Frasquita) and Fiona Murphy (Mercedes) were memorable despite the shortness of their parts.

This isn't a traditional Carmen by any means, but it's a recognisable one, even without the usual cheese topping.

If you're booking tickets, sight lines are pretty good all round, and you won't miss any principal action wherever you sit, just a little of the top of the sets from higher up.

Happy 80th Birthday Sir Colin Davis !

Podcast here.

The first of Radio 3's tribute concerts here.

Times article here.

80th birthday gala concert tickets here.

It's ruff, it's tuff, it's Gergiev's Mahler (TM)

LSO/Gergiev/Anna Larsson - Barbican, 24 September 2007

Last month Claudio Abbado guided the Lucerne Festival Orchestra through a sublime and intimate Proms performance of Mahler's gargantuan 3rd Symphony.

Tonight Valery Gergiev gave, as might be expected, a very different reading for the opening concert of the LSO's season. Gergiev seems to bring out both the best and the worst in the LSO - a tremendous raw energy and dynamism often compromised by rough hewn textures and lack of attention to detail.

The hairy-ar5ed Mahler delivered tonight had none of the refinement and little of the depth that Abbado brought, but it was an invigorating and engaging performance all the same.

Loud and fast were the watchwords. From my seat close to the front, the raw but surprisingly well-balanced timbres won out over the all-round rough edges. OK, it wasn't perfect, but it was exhilarating, and never boring.

And nobody understands the theatrical aspect of performance quite like Gergiev. Batonless, he swept, danced and even jumped around the rickety podium, macerating in unseasonal sweat, growling occasionally like a feisty jack russell guarding a bone.

The fourth movement unleashed the most refined aspect of the evening, the statuesque contralto Anna Larsson (elegantly gowned in diamante-sprinkled mauve stripes) who performed the same duty with Abbado last month. Is there anyone else right now who could do this better?

Her flawless and intensely moving delivery, followed by the graceful polish of the ladies of the London Symphony Chorus and the Tiffin Boys Choir in the fifth movement, proved a much needed counterweight to the rough and tumble of the rest.

I remain puzzled by the band's reactions to Gergiev. While they're playing, most ignore his presence totally, but during their tacets, eyes seem hypnotically fixed on his every move. Perhaps, as is often suggested, they don't see enough of him in rehearsals?

The Shops - I'm not buying it

The Shops - The Opera Group - Royal Opera House, 21 September 2007

An opera about shopping? Not quite. The first disappointment of the evening was discovering that the central character of Edward Rushton's new opera was not a shopper but a stamp collector - a gatherer not a hunter, and a man to boot. Hardly the secksy consumerist fantasy I had imagined.

Shooting through 27 hyperspeed scenes in just 70 minutes, the opera tells the story of collector Christoph (Darren Abrahams), who cunningly thieves stamps from museums while his girlfriend Anna (the stylishly vintage-garbed Anna Dennis) creates a series of implausible distractions. In between are scenes of Anna's own breathlessly acquisitive shopping expeditions, of Christoph's interrogation by a fellow-philatelist police inspector, his psychiatric evaluation, and his collection's nemesis at the hands of his interfering mother (the hilarious Phyllis Canaan).

There were some genuinely funny scenes in the jumble of anti-consumerist finger wagging, but no sense that any of them were individually essential, and no discernible shape overall.

The collage approach extended to the music. Rushton made imaginative use of the self-imposed limits of his resources (half the little orchestra were clarinets), but it was all too episodic to achieve any dramatic peaks.

At least it looked good - a set made of carrier bags of all sizes from the hand sized to shed sized lent a visual coherence, and the direction was snappy and fast paced.

And every one of the perfectly-cast singers gave the sort of flawless and committed performance that elevated them above any shortcomings in the raw materials.

The one unqualified success of the production was the programme (photo below). Instead of the usual lame booklet, £3 bought a glossy Shops carrier bag filled with information sheets, cards and leaflets and even a freebie CD - a surprisingly good NMC sampler packed with snippets of Judith Weir, Simon Bainbridge, Julian Anderson and other contemporary stuff. Does anyone ever turn down a free CD? Here is a marketing idea other productions should consider.

Check out Pappano's Ring - Royal Opera House schedule extra Ring Cycle performances

For anyone who missed out in the manic ticket grab for the Royal Opera House's Ring Cycle in October, some extra shows have been scheduled.

Billed as 'Preview Performances' , these largely feature the main cast - but be warned Placido Domingo is one of the few notable exceptions. They also warn that there may be technical issues to be resolved.

There are still quite a few tickets left at the time of writing - and they're cheaper than usual (top price is 'only' £106, or half the full cycle price, and there are plenty at under £30).

Dates are:

Das Rheingold 24 September

Die Walküre 26 September

Siegfried 28 September

Götterdämmerung 1 October

Check out Vladimir Jurowski's baton - London Philharmonic play live online

Medici Arts, the company which brought high quality live video streaming of the Verbier Festival online, has something new to share.

Last night's LPO concert, recorded live at the Royal Festival Hall, is available online here until 30 October. As with the Verbier streaming, both audio and video quality are excellent. No word as to whether this is a one-off or we can expect more in future.

And Verbier streaming availability has now been extended to 30 September.

Free Stuff!!! London Open Rehearsal Weekend

After a successful trial run last year, London's Open Rehearsal minifest runs again next weekend, 27 September to 2 October, with loads of rehearsals and talks for all sorts of arts events, nearly all free.

The detailed schedule is here. Some of the events have limited capacity and you need to book in advance, but for many you can just turn up.

Musical highlights include:

27 September - Alina Ibragimova directing the Britten Sinfonia - details here, just turn up,

27 September - RAM masterclass with Maxim Vengerov - free ticket required, details here,

1 October - London Sinfonietta rehearse Nono - details here, just turn up

2 October - LPO with Kurt Masur and Maurizio Pollini - free ticket required, details here

Miah Persson's show must go on

Miah Persson/Roger Vignoles - w19m0R3 H4ll, 19 September 2007

A woman in Miah Persson's condition would have every right to kick off her clogs, spread a little boot polish on her pickled herrings and stick her feet up on the Ikea.

Instead, the impressively gravid Ms Persson (six months at a guess), looking glowing and elegant in a slinky black jersey gown topped with a low cut beaded short sleeved top, managed a full hour on her feet. At a time when many star singers are cancelling for the lamest of excuses (no names...) it's a formidable example.

Although the way she raised her shoulders as she breathed suggested she wasn't entirely comfortable physically, there wasn't a hint of this in her laser-cut accuracy and effortlessly pure tone.

Her programme neatly divided into a mostly German first half and a veritable Scandinavian smörgåsbordetc for the second. Curiously frozen for the first few minutes, perhaps gripped by nerves, she loosened up for a nicely-poised take on Brahms' amusing Vergebliches Ständchen. She blossomed in the Liszt and Strauss selection which followed, displaying her gift for characterisation.

The only familiar song in the Scandinavian second half was Grieg's Solveigs Sang, delivered with great poignancy and a flash of a stunning coloratura expertise sadly not demanded by anything else on the programme. I found some of the Nystroem and Stenhammer songs which filled out the programme more rewarding than others, but there were some gems, particularly Nystroem's atmospheric and charming På Reveln group.

Although on this showing I wouldn't put it past Miah Persson to manage the Barbican Missa Solemnis she's scheduled for next month, I suspect tonight's encores, a Ture Rangström song and Strauss's Zueignung, may be the last we hear of her for a few months.

Fortunately tonight's recital was recorded for broadcast on Radio 3 at 7pm tomorrow, 20 September, and should be available online for a week. (If you're following the online broadcast schedule, the running order of the first two Liszt songs was switched, and the Grieg Fra Monte Pincio omitted altogether.)

Spot the Ryvita:

Fazioli trashed for Vogue's Versace shoot?

What strikes you about this Corinne Day photo from the October issue of Vogue?

The fragile beauty of Jessica Stam?

The sculptural lines and exquisite workmanship of the Atelier Versace gown?

Or the fact that the lovely Jessica appears to be supporting her entire body weight on a single key of 'the Ferrari of the piano world', a handmade Fazioli?
(check photo detail below)

According to teh ever-reliable internets, a stilleto heel of the type sported by Jessica exerts more pressure per square inch than a herd of elephants. Or in musical terms, even more than Paul Lewis at fff.

So were any pianos harmed in the making of this fashion story? Or was the assault digitally faked?

Perhaps only Corinne, Jessica and the location hosts, specialist piano shifters G and R Removals really know.

Wagner on film - a mini-fest awaits

From 1 to 17 October, the NFT (or whatever it calls itself now) will be showing a series of Wagner-related films.

They're not bothering with anything as obvious as an actual opera though. Instead there are a couple of classic Fritz Lang silents, Visconti's glamorously overblown Ludwig, and several documentaries and docu-dramas, the most punishing of which promises to be Tony Palmer's 8 hour epic Wagner - manage that, and the Covent Garden Parsifal should be a breeze.

Iphigénie en noir - Royal Opera House opens season with a few zzzzzzzzz's

Iphigenie en Tauride - Royal Opera House, 13 September 2007

Whatever its other flaws, at least this is an eco-friendly production. Director Robert Carsen minimises the carbon footprint by opting for a dimly-lit and empty charcoal box of a set and clothing everyone in plain and simple black. The principals' movement is limited, characterisation restrained, physical contact near-absent.

But this isn't polished minimalism. It's more of a cash-strapped regional theatre look, with chalked-up walls, buckets of water substituting for buckets of blood, and countless dancers flapping around the stage. The choreography is muddled and untidily executed, and often simply obscures the principals.

It's superficially coherent (black always goes with black), but insubstantial and generic. You could legitimately produce any opera from Orfeo to Peter Grimes like this, and it wouldn't make any less sense.

Carsen came to the initial Chicago production fresh from directing Brecht's Madre Coraggio (Mother Courage) in Milan, maybe carting some Brechtian presentational tropes with him. Parallels between Mother Courage and Iphigénie are tempting and have been drawn before, but are they enough to justify a production in this style?

The production leaves the music a lot of work to do to keep the audience engaged. Unfortunately, the small forces of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment under Ivor Bolton never quite measure up. Though I was sitting fairly close to the pit, they were so subdued I found myself straining to hear them at times. And the drama lacking on the stage is not to be found in the pit - Bolton conducts with an elegance and restraint which is immaculate, but fails to enliven proceedings.

Placing the chorus in the orchestra pit isn't much of a loss visually - the busy dancers fill the stage - but the remoteness of their sound was odd and jarring.

The cast is first-rate, but all the singers seemed weighed down by the grey confines of the production. Susan Graham as Iphigénie has a rich and beautiful voice, but rarely managed to transmit any of Iphigénie's internal conflict. Paul Groves was a noble but rather static Pylade who sang with a lyrical grace. Simon Keenlyside as Oreste went rather the other way, peaking so early with his inner tortures that he resorted to barking his most agonised lines. In the end though, it was the singers who held this most underwhelming of productions together as they rose above the dullness around them.

Fellow audience member Tony Pappano applauded politely at the end like everyone else, though I wonder how strongly he'll be campaigning for an early revival of this elegant but curiously damp squib.

Pass the Kleenex - Rolando Villazon cancels Covent Garden appearance

Just announced by the Royal Opera House - though mysteriously the New York Times seemed to know before they did - furry-browed tenor Rolando Villazón has pulled out of his scheduled November appearances in L'Elisir d'Amore due to persistent ill-health. Not unexpected given his spate of summer cancellations, but still a huge disappointment.

No word as yet on his replacement - the second string Nemorino, Stefano Secco, is a possibility to take on the full run though.

Gheorghiu's Tosca on TV

Long before the strops, the frocks and the walkouts, Angela Gheorghiu was feted for her electrifying performance in Benoit Jacquot's 2001 Tosca, which BBC4 will show this Saturday, September 15, at 7pm.

This is a full film version, not the usual BBC point'n'shoot live broadcast, and features Roberto Alagna and Ruggero Raimondi alongside la Gheorghiu with Tony Pappano conducting.

Reckless snog puts Alice Coote's ENO Carmen in doubt

The wheels of opera are not running smoothly at ENO. Alice Coote, due to debut as Carmen in just two weeks time, has been forced out of action with a nasty virus, caught according to Alice from an unspecified "singer who breathed on/kissed me".

Rehearsals are of course in disarray, but there's no indication yet as to whether Alice will be well enough to perform on the first night, 29 September.

In what must be an opera first, Alice will be graciously allowing her doctor's visit and treatment to be filmed for display on ENO's Carmen mini-site (which is well worth a look anyway, with videos and commentary on all aspects of the production).

Get well soon Alice!

Brian Wilson premieres That Lucky Old Sun at Royal Festival Hall

Brian Wilson - Royal Festival Hall, 10 September 2007

The opening night of the Royal Opera House's new season, or the world premiere of Brian Wilson's new work? It was a tough choice to make tonight, but I decided Iphigénie en Tauride's been around over 200 years, so it can probably wait till Thursday.

Brian Wilson is now 65, with a track record that leaves him nothing whatsoever to prove. His amiable but slightly befuddled stage presence recalls a bear that's mislaid its porridge. He is clearly reserved, but braves centre stage with only a keyboard to hide behind. It seems almost an achievement that he can even sing.

So the quality of his new work, That Lucky Old Sun, a sort of extended homage to his beloved California and his own past, delivered in an operatic sweep of Beach Boyish music and elegiac lyrics, comes as a relief. The songs that have been previewed, the standout Midnight's Another Day and Forever She'll Be My Surfer Girl (audio links) are pretty representative. Interspersed with Wilson's pre-recorded narrative, and accompanied with a slide show that included touching images of the young Wilson brothers, it was a treat only slightly spoilt by a lousy sound balance. As I found out in the interval, many in the audience were huge Wilson fans visiting London from all over the world just for this, and I shouldn't think any were disappointed.

Wrapped around the 45 minutes of That Lucky Old Sun Wilson and his amazing band tossed off some back catalogue numbers, a mixture of the familiar and the less so. Considering how much older most of these songs are than me, I was surprised how many I knew every word of. The promised Sgt Pepper closer turned out to be She's Leaving Home, of which Wilson, as he revealed, had a privileged pre-release hearing in 1967 courtesy of Paul McCartney. By this time the audience were up on their feet and dancing, and Wilson's reserve finally melted into a warm and genuine smile.

The set list:

Girl Don't Tell Me
Dance Dance Dance
Salt Lake City
Catch A Wave
Then I Kissed Her
In My Room
Do You Wanna Dance?
When I Grow Up
She Knows Me Too Well
I'd Love Just Once
Do It Again
Please Let Me Wonder
California Girls
Sloop John B
Wouldn't It Be Nice
God Only Knows
Heroes & Villains
Good Vibrations
That Lucky Old Sun, including Forever You'll Be My Surfer Girl, Midnight's Another Day, and others
Johnny B. Goode
I Get Around
Help Me Rhonda
Barbara Ann
Surfin' USA
Fun Fun Fun
She's Leaving Home

Click here for lots more photos

Opera by the yard - why Parsifal is Covent Garden's bargain of the year

Covent Garden's forthcoming Parsifal boasts what I think are the priciest tickets ever flogged by the Royal Opera House. So how can anyone justify shelling out up to £190?

Well, if you consider you're getting 5 hours 15 mins of music, a £190 top price ticket works out at £36 an hour, probably less than an hour's cab ride, and certainly less than the hour I spent with the dental hygienist earlier today.

Compare this with La Traviata - 3 hours 25 mins for £175 top whack, which is £51 an hour - or Die Zauberflöte - 3 hours for £165 or £55 an hour, and Parsifal is starting to look cheap.

And it really scores against Salome - a measly 1 hour 40 mins for £110, or £66 per hour. Parsifal is only half that. A positive bargain. Relatively speaking.

Christine Brewer's Wigmore opener kicks Proms into touch

Christine Brewer/Roger Vignoles - Wigmore Hall, 8 September 2007

The opening night of the Wigmore Hall season is cunningly scheduled to provide a welcome alternative to the last night of the Proms. The honour this season went to soprano Christine Brewer, a Wigmore Hall favourite.

In a concert recorded for later release in the Wigmore Live series, she married a familiar first half - Wagner's Wesendonck Lieder and Wolf's 4 Mignon Lieder - with some less well-known works in the second - Britten's Cabaret songs and John Carter's Cantata.

Coming on in a glamorous cerulean satin dress topped with a floral print kimono and incongruously battered black Queen Mother shoes, she delivered a predictably immaculate performance.

Her powerful voice is even across its whole range, her diction is clear but never mannered, her dynamics perfectly controlled, her tone flexible and intelligently deployed. And she makes it all seem so easy, so natural, even her breathing seems to be by some imperceptible osmosis.

In the Wagner I sensed her attention was more focused on line than on individual words, and her natural warmth substituted for a more specific engagement. Dramatic intensity was clearly not to form a part of tonight's performance. But the sublime Goethe poetry of the Wolf songs brought more pointed colouring to the text. Roger Vignoles, particularly in the tricky Wolf, proved an able and sensitive partner on the piano, the perfect foil.

Incidentally, this night was also the concert debut of the new Wigmore Hall piano, a Steinway selected with the aid (puzzlingly) of András Schiff, undoubtedly expert, but a pianist so attached to Bosendorfer he may never use the new acquisition. It seems to have a brighter, brasher tone than its predecessor, but that could simply be my imagination.

For her second half, emphasising the switch to a very different repertoire, Brewer dropped the gown and went for an art teacher look - black top and pants, complemented with a colourful braid-trimmed kimono.

The Britten/Auden Cabaret songs, as the title hints, are far from characteristic Britten, with their hints of Porter and Weill. The first one in the set of four, Calypso, was my only moment of doubt in the evening. Brewer, wavering between two irreconcilable styles, swung from singing the high notes to belting the lower lying passages. But it was largely redeemed by her wicked humour and a couple of piercing taxi-whistles she slipped in.

In the other songs of this set, her American accent and sense of humour created a warmth and ease that often eludes classically-trained singers in this sort of repertoire.

The Cantata she ended with is a classical setting of four spirituals - Peter go ring dem bells, Sometimes I feel like a motherless child, Let us break bread together, and Ride on King Jesus - by the little-known African-American composer John Carter. Brewer again sang these with a radiant born-to-it ease and great sensitivity, though I am not sure Carter's rather fussy, laboured arrangements do the exquisite simplicity of these great songs any favours.

A reception made even more enthusiastic by the free wine offered to all in the interval drew three encores, Hall Johnson's arrangement of I've heard of a city called heaven, Strauss's Ich liebe dich, and last, Mira, from Bob Merrill's musical Carnival! With its uncomplicated down-home warmth, it was not hard to see why it's Brewer's favourite song.

They came from Boston - Levine & co at the Proms

Prom 70: Boston Symphony Orchestra/Levine - Royal Albert Hall, 6 September 2007

Central Boston

The BSO and chorus; Finchley Children's Music Group in blue above

This Prom was somewhat overshadowed by the sad news of Luciano Pavarotti's death earlier in the day. Conductor James Levine's long association with the big man at the Met made it more personal for him than for most. It was no surprise when a pre-concert announcement was made that the evening was to be dedicated to Pavarotti.

But in true show-must-go-on style, Levine bounced onto the stage looking chipper, and settled into a plush velvet high chair that had been set up on the podium.

The sole work of the evening was Berlioz's La Damnation de Faust, performed in the original concert version. The BSO have been touring this around Europe for the past couple of weeks, London being their last stop. Their experience shone through in the immaculately polished performance they gave.

Faust is not dramatically or musically integrated to the extent of Berlioz's later work. It is more a collection of splendidly inventive and often witty musical ideas that Berlioz shoehorned into Goethe's Faust story, flexing Goethe's narrative where necessary to fit his own creations better. Dramaturgically weak, it shoots through key plot points and wallows in the incidentals that inspired (or fitted) the marvellous musical creations of Berlioz.

Levine's BSO luxuriated in these details with a precise, technically secure and perfectly balanced contribution. Brass and percussion in particular had a lot of work to do, some very exposed, and never put a foot wrong. It was as if they'd been rehearsing nothing else for the past year.

The Tanglewood Festival Chorus gave the best performance of any choir I've heard at this year's Proms. Performing without scores, they had perfect diction, uniform pitch, and struck exactly the right dynamic balance both internally and with the orchestra. They even managed a certain degree of characterisation, always a challenge with vocal forces of that number.

The soloists too performed mostly without scores, though they did clutch them as a safety blanket. Marcello Giordani's very Italian tenor was perhaps not quite what Berlioz had in mind for the part of Faust, but he gave a clear and sympathetic account. José Van Dam made a somewhat detached and coldly menacing Méphistophélès, dignified but threatening. The voice is thinner now, but it still projected with an almost diffident ease across the yawning Albert Hall. The Marguerite of Yvonne Naef was perhaps the most touching performance, and her rich creamy voice most suited to the material.

Berlioz, a one-time chorus singer himself, sensitively thins out the orchestration beneath the soloists, and Levine paid close attention to the singers and made sure there were no unwanted crests of sound overwhelming them at any point. With all of them having big, well-projected voices anyway, it was the first time in this Proms series I've actually been able to hear every word that was sung.

The young Finchley Children's Music Group sat patiently through the second half waiting for their moment towards the end in Margarita's Apotheosis. They were well up to the standard of the professional musicians with perfect timing, clear French, and a lovely tone. Their two soloists were rightly brought down to the front of the stage at the end to share the applause given to the adults.

Any performance as well-drilled as this one will inevitably lack a degree of spontaneity. The hard work that must have preceded it was impressive, but it was all too visible. It was impossible not to admire the musical management, and the concentration required to pull it off. But, a few soloist moments aside, it largely left me cold.

Riccardo Chailly discovers cure for insomnia

Prom 69: Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra/Chailly - Royal Albert Hall, 5 September 2007

It's not often I walk out of a concert at half time. But after an hour with Riccardo Chailly's Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra tonight I simply couldn't face any more.

The rot started with the very first bars of Beethoven's 'Coriolan' Overture. In what should be a series of crisp, decisive chords, the orchestra simply collapsed on to each note at roughly the same time. Somnolent and directionless, they drifted through the following Beethoven D major Violin Concerto like logs floating down a river. OK, so it's not the most thrilling thing he ever wrote, but this uninspired competence made Beethoven (Beethoven!) sound like nothing more than a dreary hack. Some peculiar dynamic balancing, including persistently intrusive timpani, didn't help either. From an orchestra and a conductor of such distinguished reputation, it was a huge let-down.

At least violin soloist Viviane Hagner showed a little enthusiasm and played her part with delicacy and intelligence. But even that wasn't enough to prevent a number of arena Prommers at the back falling asleep, the entertainingly loud snores of one a fitting commentary on the performance.

Angela Hewitt's Bach and Barenboim's mighty Wiener

Angela Hewitt - Cadogan Hall, 3 September 2007
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Prom 66: Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra/Barenboim - Royal Albert Hall, 3 September 2007
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Prom 68: Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra/Barenboim - Royal Albert Hall, 4 September 2007

The refinement of Angela Hewitt's playing was matched by her frock choice for this lunchtime recital, a slinky teal jersey sleeveless gown and pants paired with teetering stilettos in matching satin (a risky choice for an hour at the piano?). But as it turned out she pedalled minimally, allowing the bright, pinging tone of her Fazioli piano to illuminate her midday programme, which sandwiched a couple of Scarlatti sonatas between two Bach Partitas.

She characterised each dance in the opening Partita no 1 with a clarity and delicacy that flowed through the whole programme. A little hesitancy and some uncharacteristic fluffs in this opener weren't repeated in the closing Bach Partita no 4, each phrase shaped with complete focus and attention. 

Although Domenico Scarlatti was a contemporary of Bach, the two sonatas performed, K9 and K29, sound as if they come from another century, even another planet. Their sparky playfulness and invention provided just the right amount of contrast with the Bach.

Unfortunately, the BBC radio recording destroys the delicacy and intimacy of Hewitt's performance with a cavernous quality that wasn't at all apparent at the recital. But if you're curious about what a piano might sound like at the bottom of a well, it's worth a couple of minutes attention.

Given the tube strike which started a couple of hours earlier, it was surprising to see a full house for Barenboim and the Vienna Philharmonic in the evening, but it was worth any amount of difficulty to see a performance of this calibre.

They opened with Schubert's light and Mozartean fifth Symphony, composed when he was just 19. Finessing that tricky blend of assurance and freshness, the Vienna Phil gave the most charming and delightful performance.

Having no doubt drilled these consummate musicians to perfection in rehearsal, Barenboim simply waved his arms in the air now and again as if he was waiting for his deodorant to dry.

The main course of the evening was Bruckner's Symphony no 4, which according to the programme was performed in the original 1874 version. I didn't notice any differences from the more usually played 1880 version so I'm a bit baffled by this.

Anyway, who cares, it was a marvel from start to finish. Barenboim's conception had the air of confidence - no muddle and no theatrics. From the moment the horns reached out over the rippling strings in the opening bars through to the blazing finale there was not a second's drop in concentration. The burnished sweep of the string section was the foundation for some immaculate and inspired playing from the wind and brass as they shaped the long melodic phrases.

It really is impossible to pick out any one of the finely-crafted moments or any musician for special praise. Sometimes a great performance seems to be constructed in front of you from the base up - this one felt as if it had been born perfect, fully-formed, and simply unveiled to us slowly, second by second.

The tube strike finally managed to get its claws into the Proms with the Vienna Phil's second and final Prom the next day. There were great toothless gaps in the stalls seats, and even the arena could have squeezed a few more standing customers in.

It would have been unreasonable to expect anything of the intensity of the previous day's Bruckner, and indeed this was a much more relaxed affair.

If the previous night had focused on architecture and construction, this one was about painting. The huge textural differences between each of its four sections were what really leapt out from a surprisingly abrasive take on Bartók's Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta. Ligeti's brief Atmosphères was similarly rough-hewn, its curious shapes grinding up against each other.

The other two pieces, Kodály's Dances from Galánta and Enescu's Romanian Rhapsody No. 1 were delivered immaculately, and with tremendous verve. But despite their common Central European ancestry, their dancing rhythms seemed to belong on a different programme from the Bartók and Ligeti. Then again, perhaps that was the point.

The almost inevitable thundering ovation drew a couple of lively Strauss encores - the Vienna Phil as comfortable with these as with everything else they'd played.

Before the concert I slipped in to Proms head Nicholas Kenyon's audience Q&A session. This drew mostly the predictable Why can't we have more/less [insert name here] questions. However Kenyon did reveal that the Proms cost £8.5m, of which only £3.5m was covered by ticket receipts, the BBC footing the rest. For how long I wonder?