Intermezzo

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.

Harrison Birtwistle's The Minotaur premieres at Covent Garden ****Now with added T1ts!****

The Minotaur - Royal Opera House Covent Garden, 15 April 2008

It's hard to accuse Sir John Tomlinson of stealing the show when the whole thing was written specially for him. Even so, 45 minutes along, just as it started to drag a little, his first appearance jolted it back into life. Bull-masked and bare-chested, he roared and lowed the Minotaur into being, spotlit alone on the bare stage as the orchestra rose to a clamour beneath him. Talk about making an entrance.

The evening started well enough - glassy black sea rolling on a video screen, sighing strings, bass winds grunting ominously beneath. But then Ariadne and Theseus turned up. In Birtwistle's tale, the pair are grossly unsympathetic. She'll do anything to escape the prison of an island she shares with the Minotaur, including tricking the visiting Theseus into marriage. Theseus isn't interested in anything except the revenge-killing of the Minotaur. Hardly a pair of lovebirds.

Birtwistle's scoring here is almost serene; cool and translucent. The vocal thread leaps and jerks here and there, but never thrills. The spare, minimalist set  - a sun, a sky, a sail - starts to look bare and dull. The joy spreads thin. Twenty minutes in, and I was counting down to the interval. Christine Rice and Johan Reuter sang splendidly and no doubt did what they were supposed to do, but like a family Christmas, the whole thing just probed the powers of human endurance a little too hard.

But with the entrance of the Minotaur, everything shifted up several gears. The music became bristling, abrasive and veryvery loud, with an army of percussionists spilling out from the pit and into the stage side boxes, and two more beating their drums on stage.

In Birtwistle's version of the tale, the Minotaur is not a dumb agent of destruction, he's a deeply sympathetic character, yearning to make sense of himself and his existence. (But managing the odd bit of beastly rape and murder in between).

Trapped in a bullring, egged on by a masked chorus, the Minotaur bellows inarticulately and gores his sacrificial victims with balletic grace. Then alone in a dream and gazing into the mirror of his future, he speaks, or rather sings, a caged handful of circling notes. Tomlinson's face, visible beneath his wire bull mask, emphasises the human shadowed beneath the beast. It's riveting and unsettling.

I still can't decide whether the near-repeat of the sacrifice and mirror-dream scenes increases or diminishes their impact - it's structurally elegant, but does it add anything?

I had more doubts about the Keres, mono-winged goth vultures who descend to feast on the Minotaur's sacrificial leftovers. Amanda Echalaz was brilliantly terrifying as their screeching leader, but shouldn't the Minotaur himself and his killings be the scariest thing on the stage?

Here are the t!ts, and yes they're more like the front of a ship than the front of a page 3 lady, but hay, countertenors can't grow their own. Ariadne had to get the ball of string tip somehow, and Andrew Watts, the Snake Priestess, provided it, gliding skywards, skirts trailing, stuttering in an arresting shriek. It was the closest the evening got to humour, a relief from the intensity of the soul-searching and bloodshed, but far too brilliantly executed to be a mere distraction.

Even the return of Theseus and Ariadne for some more dry interplay couldn't deflate the thrilling dénouement, where mortally wounded by Theseus, the Minotaur finally speaks, becoming human in death, a heartbreaking transformation from Sir John Tomlinson.

Clearly conscious of the responsibility in mounting this major premiere, Pappano had polished the orchestra to Berlin Phil-like perfection. Yes even the horns. I can't recall ever hearing the Royal Opera House orchestra play quite this immaculately - it certainly raises the bar for future productions.

One thing we probably won't see again though is £65 top price tickets - and anyone who imagines ticket prices don't affect the audience mix should have checked out the significant proportion of younger faces in the full house tonight.    

Osvaldo Golijov's Ainadamar loses the plot

Ainadamar - CBSO/Spano - Barbican, 13 April 2008

Osvaldo Golijov has been criticised for the way he mixes folk and classical styles, but this I found was the greatest strength of this Ainadamar. Cante jondo is grafted on unadulterated, but this serves a specific dramatic purpose, and other musical influences - Spanish, Arabic, Jewish, gypsy - are more seamlessly melded.

The most effective singer on stage was the only non-classical one, Jesús Montoya, his open-throated ululations penetrating to the soul. Guitars and percussion lent a thrilling, vital energy to the music. Even the classical singers, the great Dawn Upshaw at their centre, the darkly magnificent Kelley O'Connor as Lorca, had an emotional honesty and direct appeal you rarely find in conventional opera. The singers' microphones were no barrier either.

The real problem with Ainamadar is not the style, but the structure. Arrange the notes any way you will, it's not an opera. An opera tells a story; Ainadamar simply wallows in unfocussed reminiscence. The programme notes of the original 2003 version that 'the dramatic effect was at times diffuse' -- the reason for extensive revisions, resulting in the version performed tonight. But the diffuseness remains.

The work is constructed around three memories or 'images' of the dying actress, Maria Xirgu, as she thinks about her relationship with Lorca and how she might have saved him from murder by Falangists many years ago. Osvaldo Golijov said in an interview just before the show that the the great thing about opera was that you could spread a minute's real-life experience out into an eighty minute performance. I'm more inclined to think it would work better the other way round. This was not a drama, but more like that jumble of confused dreams/recollections you can have just before dropping off to sleep.

It's further compromised by the style of the libretto - dreamy sub-Lorca poetic snatches. There are sound reasons for echoing Lorca's style in an opera about his life - but wouldn't something taut like La casa de Bernarda Alba have been a better model than the verse? The music can do nothing more than drift along with the text.

Although this wasn't fully staged - the singers just strolled around an atmospherically-lit patch at the front - I don't think that made any real difference. Golijov clearly has a talent and a unique voice. It's a shame it's sprayed around so haphazardly in Ainamadar.

Composer grapples diva:

and in for the kill:

Nina Stemme's refrigerated Rosenkavalier

Der Rosenkavalier - Zurich Opera - Royal Festival Hall, 12 April 2008

Tackling the intensely theatrical Der Rosenkavalier without a full staging is rather like doing Star Wars as a radio play. Disguises, asides, gestures are so integral to the drama. Setting the singers for this concert performance on a small platform behind the orchestra wasn't an entirely successful compromise. It gave them a few inches of space to act and interact, but left them stranded far from the audience. My cheapie stage side seat became an asset -- people seated further back in the main hall had difficulty hearing some of the singers. It may have been the reason a fair number left after the first act, depleting the already far from sellout crowd even further.

Or it may have been the turgid morning-after feeling of the first act. Despite Franz Welser-Möst's crisp pacing, it tended to drag. This arid account couldn't be accused of over-indulgence. Piotr Beczala's brief appearance as the Italian Singer was a welcome highspot, and Alfred Muff's splendid and wily Baron Ochs provided the vital vulgarity that Welser-Möst seemed to fear. Nina Stemme was a commanding Marschallin, but stony cold as a pillar in her white draped Grecian goddess gown. At least she had the sheer power to soar over the orchestra, something the tailcoated Michelle Breedt's otherwise sturdy Octavian lacked.

The second act began a huge improvement. Finally Welser-Möst came out of his shell and injected a little spunk and vitality. A few ensemble problems were a small price to pay. Laura Aikin's bright, pure-toned Sophie complemented Michelle Breedt's warm and mellow Octavian perfectly. The Pavarotti-shaped Rudolf Schasching and Kismara Pessatti manoeuvred perilously around the narrow platform, but provided more comic counterweight as Valzacchi and Annina.

Nina Stemme's switch to a burgundy brocade ensemble for her final act appearance signalled a slight increase in performance temperature. Or perhaps she'd just spilled her interval snack down the white frock, who knows. Her voice positively but there was still no vulnerability, no wistfulness or regret. All passion was left to Octavian and Sophie.

Although the orchestra was buffed to a sheen under Welser-Möst's tight control, and despite some fine individual performances, the evening  - all four hours of it - was an endurance test at times. The danger with sidestepping sentimentality and vulgarity is that sometimes engagement - and entertainment - gets left by the wayside too.

Battle of the Tonys - Pappano officially more powerful than Hall

The Telegraph's list of the 100 most powerful people in British culture confirms what many of us have for a long time hoped - the Royal Opera House's music director Tony Pappano (no 65) is officially more powerful than its chief executive Tony Hall (no 68).

Both Pappano and Hall share the hallmark of the truly powerful - inability to own up when they cock up. But at least Pappano doesn't put his foot in his mouth with Hall's clockwork regularity -- indeed he keeps his public pronouncements to a wise minimum.

Significantly, both are trumped by Dame Vivien Duffield (no 3), chairman of the Royal Opera House Endowment Fund.

Elsewhere on the list there are rather more names from the classical music world than you might expect, given its low profile and small audience in comparison to other art forms. But its slice of the public funding cake is a chunky one, and if there's one lesson to be taken home from Das Rheingold, it's that the guy with the money calls the shots.

Other music names on the list are 20 - Sir Simon Rattle, 26 - Thomas Adès, 27 - Raymond Gubbay, 59 - Sir Nicholas Kenyon, 64 - Harrison Birtwistle, 77 - Sir John Eliot Gardiner, 88 - Valery Gergiev, 89 - Kathryn McDowell, 92 - Ian Bostridge, 96 - Mark Anthony Turnage, 100 - Sir Roger Norrington.

And not forgetting the big number 1, the director of the ROH's forthcoming Don Carlos, Nicholas Hytner - though presumably for his National Theatre management rather than his delightful Magic Flute.

Steven Isserlis and Joshua Bell revive some Russians

Steven Isserlis/Joshua Bell/Beatrice Muthelet/Jerusalem Quartet/Kirill Gerstein - Wigmore Hall, 10 April 2008

Arensky String Quartet No. 2 in A minor Op. 35 for violin, viola & 2 cellos
Balakirev Romance for cello
Rubinstein Cello Sonata No. 1 in D
Tchaikovsky Souvenir de Florence Op. 70

Steven Isserlis must tie with Mitsuko Uchida for London's most indefatigable concert goer. In fact, I'm so used to seeing him in the audience that it comes as slight shock to remember he has a job. And a mission too, judging by this crusading minifest he's organised to bring underexposed Russian chamber music into the spotlight.

This was the second of the four concerts, featuring Isserlis and friends performing music more usually sidelined or flat-out ignored. It's the sort of thing that might normally half-fill the house on an aficionados-only basis, but the names of Isserlis and Joshua Bell pulled a whole new audience in. The elderly Bell fans seated next to me had to contain their surprisingly puppyish enthusiasm for an hour though, as he only appeared in the second half of the programme.

First to appear were Isserlis, his cello, and three of the Jerusalem Quartet - all sporting identical black patent dancing shoes (a bet....or an eye for a bulk buy discount?) Otherwise nothing of note visually, unless you count the Isserlis mop, now that Rattle's thinning surely the undisputed world's most musicianly hairdo (photo: Clive Barda).

Isserlis's selections emphasised the exuberant party-loving side of the Russian nature more than its vodka-soaked melancholia.

Arensky's String Quartet brought this to the fore with its brief and lugubrious opening movement giving way to lively folk song variations at the work's centre. The vigorous workout it received didn't compromise beautifully articulated playing all round.

With Kirill Gerstein at the piano, Isserlis gave Balakirev's Romance and Rubinstein's Cello Sonata a strapping muscularity that counterbalanced their inherent winsome sweetness. And it was riveting simply to watch Isserlis perform, his technique so perfect and fingers so strong that both hands seemed near-motionless as he played. Gerstein I couldn't see from where I was sitting. His playing certainly sounded effortless, an achievement particularly in the tricksy Rubinstein with its endless ripples and powerhouse chords.

The second half brought to the stage what a large chunk of the audience had been waiting for - the Tom Cruise of the violin, Joshua Bell - for Tchaikovsky's sextet Souvenir de Florence. Bell took the driving seat here, pushing the work forward at a furious pace. It was a wonderful performance, the musicians' responsiveness and communication and sheer joy in playing a delight to watch as well as listen to. Even the slower parts had a pace and energy that defied any flagging. It was no surprise that Bell, bobbing and weaving in his seat like Ali, was dripping in sweat by the end. It made me wish I'd been able to get tickets for more than one concert in this series, but they've been srs golddust since the minute they went on sale. Next time....

Too much Poulenc, not enough pipi

Lisa Milne/John Mark Ainsley/Malcolm Martineau - Wigmore Hall, 9 April 2008

Poulenc Cinq poemes de Paul Eluard; Métamorphoses; Le Portrait; Nuage; Chanson de Porcelaine; Mais Mourir; Fiançailles pour rire; Le fraîcheur et le feu   
Heggie Friendly Persuasions
Messiaen 'Trois melodies': Pourquoi; Le sourire; La fiancée perdue
Honegger Saluste du Bartas - 6 Villanelles 
Rosenthal Four songs from 'Chansons de Monsieur Bleu': Quat' et trois sept, L'éléphant du jardin des plantes; Grammaire; La souris d'Angleterre

The title of this recital, 'Poulenc and French tradition', steeled me for its Poulenc-stuffed first half. Even so, with nearly an hour of material packed in, it all got a bit relentless well before the end. No wonder Poulenc song recordings tend to toss in a little Fauré or Debussy for leavening.

This is no reflection on the meticulously prepared singers. The lustrous Lisa Milne, performing without a score, fumbled the odd line, but such is her command of the French language she could flannel it like a native. John Mark Ainsley's pronounciation wasn't quite as idiomatic, but a couple of vowels aside it was spot-on, and he gave the work the sort of thoughtful, intelligent performance it merited.

Poulenc's Louise de Vilmorin settings Fiançailles pour rire lent Lisa Milne the opportunity for some emotional exploration. But the portions of elliptical Éluard surrealism which surrounded it were oversized, and the jumble of word play eventually dragged.

The second half began with a change of pace which might have sat better as a breather in the first half. It was the premiere of Jake Heggie's Friendly Persuasions, four songs (in English) about friends of Poulenc. Endearingly retro and unmistakeably American, it's maybe too much of a Broadway/Poulenc pastiche to carry any real weight, but it was John Mark Ainsley's best performance of the night, measured and just the right side of intense, and the words seemed anything but trite.

In this année Messiaen, the three early songs performed by Lisa Milne may not be masterpieces, but they were fascinating in demonstrating many of his later characteristics in embryonic form. And Saluste du Bartas, winningly displayed by Ainsley, was a bit of a discovery too, showing another side to the often dour Honegger in its sparkling melodies and imaginative harmonies.

The last part of the recital was perhaps the slightest, but definitely the most entertaining. For Manuel Rosenthal's childish Chansons de Monsieur Bleu, John Mark Ainsley landed a couple of epic tonguetwisters perfectly, and Lisa Milne, explaining the éléphant's accident in his culotte, clearly relished the opportunity to make pipi on the stage of the Wigmore Hall, even if only verbally.

Some of the songs were performed for Radio 3 prior to the recital - available for another couple of days here. And it looked as if the whole thing was being recorded anyway, so I'm guessing it may turn up on Radio 3 at some point in the future.