Intermezzo

Nagano dissects Mahler in Paris

Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal - Salle Pleyel, Paris, 28 April 2009

The Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal haven't visited France for a while, which might account for a less than packed-out Salle Pleyel. Indeed the Salle Pleyel were marketing this concert largely on the back of soloist Klaus Florian Vogt's knockout performance in last year's Lohengrin.  But music director Kent Nagano's mission to raise the orchestra's international profile has resulted in a short European tour (the UK is off the list), of which this was the last but one date.

The result was taut and accomplished playing all round, ensemble sharpened by repeated performance. Details positively sparkled in the first two of Debussy's Nocturnes, Nuages and Fêtes.

Tan Dun's Orchestral Theatre 1:O followed. This 1990 composition is far more interesting than the tired oriental cliches he's been peddling recently. The O is for Origin, and the piece recreates a shamanic ritual symphonically with minimalist textures and odd sonorities evocative of traditional Chinese instruments. Col legno strings provide a rattling percussive backbone, and the orchestra sigh, shout and grunt en masse, an effect which provoked a few unsuppressable titters around me. Still, it was hypnotically fascinating, and very well-received.

The Chinese theme was picked up again in the second half with Das Lied von der Erde. The soloists were Christian Gerhaher and Klaus Florian Vogt, two singers I admire hugely, but very different from each other. Gerhaher is one of today's great lieder singers, with a rich colour palette and a fanatically detailed approach to text. Vogt on the other hand is pure sonority, a voice with the abstract qualities of a musical instrument. It was never clear quite what Nagano hoped to achieve from this odd marriage, apart from a clearly-delineated break between songs.

The Tan Dun piece proved a canny entrée, as Nagano's reflective reading underlined the novelty of Mahler's scoring. Carefully nuanced detail was laid out coolly and clearly - no red-blooded romanticism here. But Nagano wasn't afraid of unleashing the full power of the orchestra either, a little to the detriment of the first song, Das Trinklied, where a slightly tired-sounding Klaus Florian Vogt struggled to be heard. Neither this nor Der Trunkene im Frühling were ideally matched to his elevated qualities of luminous clarity and effortlessly exquisite tone. But his Von der Jugend was as near perfect as it gets.

A scarily intense Christian Gerhaher demonstrated the real reason this cycle is usually attemped by an alto rather than a baritone - it's simply too hard and too high. Gerhaher nailed every note perfectly, but it was touch and go, with the effort at the top particularly apparent. But this was another fine performance from him - always attentive to words, his immaculately-crafted phrasing was particularly telling in the lied-like Der Abschied.

It was overall an idiosyncratic reading that split the audience two ways - a minority of ostentatious coughers and fidgeters who dashed for the doors the minute Nagano's baton dropped, and a far greater number of enthusiasts whose applause brought conductor and soloists back to the stage at least six times - I lost count.

 Christian Gerhaher mit Mahler tribute haircut:
 

Klaus Florian Vogt:
 

 

Monty Python's Life of Lohengrin

Lohengrin - Royal Opera House, 27 April 2009

above - Spamengrin and Lohengralot compared

It's been tarted up with a couple of acid house back-projections, but this tired production still looks all of its 32 years. Yea verily it's tough, post-Spamalot, to swallow all the standard-waving and knights-on-Broadway costumery with a straight face.

But there's little of substance beyond. Some sort of ecclesiastical theme might be inferred from the minimal scenery - a skull-encrusted throne, a Byzantine cross, and a cow's head on a stick (or tête d'aurochs as the powerful pagan symbol is more elegantly known in French). But that's as far as it goes - the politico-religious conflict is merely acknowledged, never explored.

And after all this time, the technical failings haven't been sorted out. The scrims that ripple like net curtains, the inexplicably sandy floor which sticks to everything, and worst of all, the Bat Cave-style swan projection, barely visible under the bright lights. When a director chooses to emphasise the historical over the mythical element of Lohengrin and deny the audience a range of subjective interpretations, these are the sorts of things that need to be absolutely right. Otherwise, the spell is broken. 

All this would have mattered less if the cast had shown greater engagement. But, Petra Lang's luminously unhinged Ortrud aside, it was dull, static, stand and deliver all round.

Edith Haller looked great, and she has the voice for Elsa, pure and blanched. But as yet she doesn't have it under perfect control (or the money note, which fell embarrassingly short). And her lost expression indicated a want of detailed direction.

She prays for a knight in shining armour. Johan Botha (rhymes with 'bloater') looks more like a wardrobe in a nightdress. But he can at least sing the part, though his sweet but pressured tone is not as effortlessly convincing as Klaus Florian Vogt's. Even less mobile than Pavarotti, his limited wrist-flick gesticulation gifted us two of the crappiest swordfights ever seen at Covent Garden, and his vocal stamina wilted at several points.

We might have seen a bit more action on stage had the great Falk Struckmann been well enough to perform Telramund, one of his signature roles, as scheduled. Instead, we had the able but distinctly less charismatic Gerd Grochowski. Kwangchul Youn was a less imposing Heinrich here than he was in the recent Berlin production. Boaz Daniel, marooned thanklessly up a pole for half the evening, declaimed forcefully as the Herald.

The path was clear for Semyon Bychkov to make this a conductor's night, and he did so with great care and style and attention to detail. It wasn't flawless - the Vorspiel dragged a little, there were some split notes in the brass, and once or twice some drama was sacrificed for structural symmetry. But these are niggles - the orchestra played beautifully and with great discipline for Maestro Bychkov - definitely one of the finest performances of the season.

This and this alone persuades me to return for another performance later in the run. Possibly with my eyes shut though.

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#operaplot prepares for take-off

Can you summarise an opera plot in 140 characters or less?

That's the challenge of the Operaplot competition launching on Twitter today.

Blogger The Omniscient Mussel started the whole thing. She's already run the contest once - the winning entry was "Seamstress pals around with bohemians in a December-May affair Receives muff as parting gift".

Now it's on to Round 2, and she's persuaded opera companies all over the globe to provide some fabulous prizes for the best entry. And in an even more brilliant coup, Danielle De Niese has been recruited as the competition's judge. 

The full rules can be found here.

Royal Opera House new season - more details

A little more information about next season emerged at last night's Covent Garden Friends' preview.

Firstly and importantly, Tony Hall confirmed that prices are definitely not going up next season (which contradicts the press conference report of three-monthly 'reviews' - so who knows).

The one exception may be Barry Domingo's Simon Boccanegra in summer 2010, which could be singled out for premium rates. This production gets some heavyweight pimping, including a (free!) Big Screen showing and community activities (mainly in the North). Why, they've even given Barry his own web page. As reported in the press, Plácido/Barry has no Covent Garden bookings any further ahead. So it could be our last chance to experience the Domingo magic on stage. But don't we say that every year?

There will again be various cinema screenings, but few will be live. Details are not finalised, but check here for updates.

There are no new operas in the main house this season because the policy is only one every other year. (2010-11's Anna Nicole Smith project has already been announced). Elaine Padmore did publicly confirm that "three or four" were in the pipeline though.

On a smaller scale, there's the Opera Shots programme of new opera in the Linbury next June. Orlando Gough is the only composer named in the press release, but Jocelyn Pook, Nitin Sawnhey and Neil Hannon have also been approached.

Another Linbury show not in the press release is an Opera Group production in July 2010, likely to be The Lion's Face by Elena Langer. (The OperaGenesis website lists new Linbury projects in development).

almost like xmas

Last night's Lang Lang gig at St Luke's (of which, more later, time permitting) came with an unexpected post-show bonus.  Every audience member got a *free* canvas bag, containing the usual promo leaflet guff, plus a sweetly-themed and hygienically-packaged fortune cookie.

Now I've got the LSO bag to go with my Simón Bolívar YO jacket and cap from last week, all I need is the Radu Lupu beach shorts and the Bernard Haitink fluffy bunny slippers, and I'm all dressed for summer.

ENO "in quite a good position financially"

The Money Lender and his Wife - Quentin Matsys

While American opera houses are collapsing around our ears, the English National Opera is "in quite a good position financially" according to its Finance Director.

Interviewed in Accountancy Age magazine, Andrew Gambrell also claims that "there are currently no plans for further restructuring or redundancies," and "we haven’t had to rely on significant corporate income for next year."

Of course, when you have expenses of £34m a year on box office income of £10m, a £17m Arts Council grant does come in handy. (Check out the 2008 Accounts for more numbers)

Bank manager nicks Dame Kiri's pension

The Mercury News reports a California bank manager has been arrested on suspicion of embezzling more than $650,000 from Dame Kiri Te Kanawa.

Investigators became suspicious of bank manager Sokvoeun "Cindy" Sou after Dame Kiri's financial adviser spotted unauthorized withdrawals from her retirement account. The checks were made out to Sou's family members.

So it's not just British banks you can't trust......

More here.

Could Katie Price be the Royal Opera House's Anna Nicole Smith?

Ever since the Royal Opera House announced their plans for a Mark-Anthony Turnage opera based on the life of Anna Nicole Smith (or at least since the press went to town on it 10 months later ) the casting has been hotly debated.

Who could possibly do justice to the title role? Who has enough air between her ears, extensions on her head and silicon in her bewbs to recreate the billionaire-humping legend?

Step forward Katie Price (for the elderly, aka Jordan):

"I'm going to sing an opera song - even Pete (husband Peter Andre) says I could sing better in opera than in pop." she told the Daily Star yesterday.

And yes, she can sing! Ish. Here for the strong of stomach is her losing 2005 bid for Eurovision glory. (Stick with the preamble for a teasing snatch of Der Hölle Rache too):

Royal Opera House ticket prices to be raised every three months

Well, what Reuters actually says after this morning's ROH press conference is that prices will be *reviewed* every three months. Call me cynical, but we all know what that means. If they can get away with it they will.

Lang Lang, Daniel Harding and a bunch of LSOERS

London Symphony Orchestra / Tan Dun / Daniel Harding / Lang Lang - Barbican, 21 April 2009 

The most famous symphony in the world right now, Tan Dun's five minute Internet Symphony 'Eroica' was more impressive live in the Barbican than on the inevitably tinny YouTube video. But, frantic yet curiously numbing, it still sounds more like a theme tune for a Saturday night footie programme than a groundbreaking work of art.  The LSO, faces like small children confronted with steaming brussels sprouts, despatched it efficiently, though with manifestly less enthusiasm than the conductor/composer himself. The whole YouTube orchestra project of which this is the centrepiece has done a brilliant job of promoting classical music on YouTube. In that respect, it's a massive success. But please can we leave it out of the concert hall now?

The capacity audience seemed to like it. But not half as much as the entrance of the man who for many was the evening's main attraction - Lang Lang - here to give the UK premiere of the piano concerto Tan Dun composed specially for him. It's a more serious work than the Internet Symphony, both in length - thirty minutes - and intent, but again there's much in it that's superficial and derivative.

The piano is very much centre stage throughout, but surprisingly (considering Lang Lang's virtuosity), there's little flashiness in the writing. The key recurring motif is a single note, repeated at rattlesnake speed using alternating fingers. Sounds easy, is hard. Incredibly so when articulated with Lang Lang's clarity and evenness. Stealth flash. But not exactly 'pianistic'. Some attractive moments of Ravelian introspection aside, that's what I felt about a lot of the piano writing in this piece. Tan Dun wasn't so much exploring the instrument's sonorities as wishing it were something else. A drum perhaps, or sometimes a harp. Lang Lang's heart didn't seem to be quite in it, and I couldn't blame him.

Percussion, both tuned and whacked, features as strongly as the piano. It lends a little Chinese flavour but the overall effect is more pot noodle than chow mein. What really killed the work for me though was its rambling, episodic structure (or lack of) - it's a side dish to an invisible movie in the  Crouching Tiger mould. Background music.

Daniel Harding - looking in action ever more like a pocket-sized Rob Brydon - was drafted in to restore normality for the second half with Mahler's First Symphony. A fair few of the audience had scooted off in the interval, their musical appetites sated. They missed a great performance. Harding had the measure of the detail, without resorting to empty, over-emphatic gesture. The opening shiver of strings, immaculately controlled, was just the first indication of his detailed preparation. The first movement's offstage brass were perfectly balanced and wind solos assertive but not overbearing.

The odd positioning of the basses - behind and beneath the first violins - seemed to me his only misjudgement (though for all I know he was following Mahler's instruction). Sitting centre stalls, I simply couldn't hear them very well. It was certainly Mahler's idea (at one point) for the usual solo bass introduction to the third movement to be augmented by the whole section - another change that didn't work for me, losing the sinister directness of the solo alternative. The tragic and grotesque edges of this movement weren't quite sharply focussed, but that may be preferable to Gergiev's idiosyncratic extremes.

An explosive finale pushed the volume limits, but never quite teetered out of control. The recollection of the opening string shimmer and horn call lent a neat symmetry. Once again, Harding followed a composer instruction, this time for the horns to stand up - though I'm not sure this added anything but novelty value on this particular occasion. But overall , a measured and satisfying account.

LSO play Symphony No. 1 "Eroica" - for YouTube, conducted by Tan Dun:

Royal Philharmonic Society 2009 Awards - nominations announced

The shortlist for the RPS Awards - the only British classical music awards guaranteed to be Katherine Jenkins-free - was announced earlier today.

Fabulous Ferruccio Furlanetto is nominated in the singer category - but can he beat the Brits, Susan Bullock and Mark Padmore? He deserves a lot more than applause for his magnetic performances in Simon Boccanegra and Don Carlo. I'm thrilled to see George Benjamin's Into the Little Hill and Birwistle's Minotaur given a nod too.

Some of the nominations are listed below; the full list can be found here.

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Conductor: Ivan Fischer, John Eliot Gardiner, Valery Gergiev

Ensemble: London Sinfonietta, The Monteverdi Choir, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Ensemble 10/10

Instrumentalist: Daniel Barenboim, Steven Isserlis, Janine Jansen

Large-Scale Composition: George Benjamin: Into the Little Hill, Simon Holt: A Table of Noises, Mark-Anthony Turnage: Chicago Remains

Opera and Music Theatre: Barbican: Present Voices – operas by Glass, Golijov and Saariaho, Harrison Birtwistle: The Minotaur (ROH), English National Opera, Independent Opera: Pelléas and Mélisande

Singer: Susan Bullock, Ferruccio Furlanetto, Mark Padmore

Young Artists: Aurora Orchestra, Allan Clayton, Boris Giltburg, Yannick Nézet-Séguin

Royal Opera House price rise shock

and the shock is.........the prices for next season (a few 50p roundings aside) are exactly the same as last year. For the first few productions anyway.  Last year's across-the-board price increases have not been repeated.

What I think we may see instead is that productions move up into a higher price category than before. With so many price categories and no labelling it's hard to tell when this is happening.

But it is 'interesting' that this season's Traviata and Tosca for example, are in the highest price category, previously reserved for five hour Wagnerian epics, which tops out at £210.

Metropolitan Opera mikes up

  "John Tomlinson boomed potently via microphone as Fafner, and Lisette Oropesa, also amplified, chirped sweetly as the Woodbird."

With that one innocent little sentence, the FT's Martin Bernheimer lays out on the page what has long been speculated by its audiences and denied by its management.

As his elegant review of Siegfried confirms - the Met uses amplification.

Would a critic of Mr Bernheimer's stature make such a bold assertion if he wasn't absolutely confident of his facts? Hardly likely.

Can we expect the Met themselves to come clean now?

Victory for Venezuela - Gustavo Dudamel leads Simon Bolivar Orchestra to a knockout win

Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolívar / Dudamel - Royal Festival Hall, 18 April 2009 

This, the last concert in the Simón Bolívar Orchestra's South Bank residency, was by far the hottest ticket in town - sold out for months, and tickets going for hundreds on Ebay. Tan Dun was apparently being denied a VIP comp as I went in, on the grounds that there simply weren't any seats left. Those lucky enough to snag a ticket were as mixed a bunch as you'd find anywhere. Youngsters, oldsters, MPs, Essex princesses, Russian robber barons and their collagen-gobbed molls, American exchange students, Viktoria Mullova, ladies who lunch, lads who drink.

But the most important guest, sitting bang in the centre of the stalls, was José Antonio Abreu, the tiny, fragile, saintly-looking founder of El Sistema, who quite rightly received a standing ovation before the concert began. Amidst all the point-missing press, it's easy to forget that the Venezuelan project is not about training musicians or even nurturing individual musical talent but about changing the lives of the most deprived children. If practising four hours a day six days a week happens to turn them into great performers, that's just a welcome side effect.

The programme played to their strengths, with a first half of three short Latin American works - the robustly rhythmic Sensemaya by Silvestre Revueltas, Antonio Estevez's dreamy, impressionistic Mediodia en el llano and the most identifiably Venezuelan of them all, Santa Cruz de Pacairigua by Evencio Castellanos.

If every performance of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring  was as raw and visceral as this one, there'd be a riot every time it was played. It was not subtle, the bursts of brutal frenetic energy played out at maximum volume. What it displayed was how brilliantly the orchestra work together. Like their opening Tchaikovsky symphony last week, this is an intricately-interwoven work in which none of the individual parts taken in isolation really make sense, so it needs what it got - an orchestra who can play together as one, attuned and responsive to each other.

Encores, of course there were encores! Starting with Batuque by Oscar Lorenzo Fernândez, a mad dance that spins faster and faster and faster - but never quite out of control - until it collapses in a heap.

Elgar's Nimrod variation was the surprise second encore - beautifully played, absolutely straight, with repeats. An enormously touching tribute to their temporarily-adopted city.

There was a brief blackout while the orchestra swapped their dark jackets for the bright bombers stashed under their chairs, and then a reprise of the Ginastera and Bernstein encores from Tuesday's performance. Only this time even crazier, with violinists dancing on chairs while they played, horns spinning and who knows what tossed high in the air and deftly recaptured.

The audience went insane, with loads rushing down to the front. Was it just to try and nab one of the Venezuela jackets and caps that the orchestra were ripping off and tossing into the crowd? Or was it years of pent-up classical-going frustration - no talking, no coughing, no clapping till it's over - finally being allowed to manifest itself? 

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A lesson from Lang Lang

Lang Lang Masterclass - St Luke's, 18 April 2009

photo: Platon

There are still those who think Lang Lang would be better off taking masterclasses than giving them, but I'm not one. This masterclass for three of the Guildhall's most promising piano students was the second event in the LSO's Lang Lang residency - I decided to give the first, a morning workshop for 100 pianists "of all abilities" a miss, on the grounds that, like Handel's Messiah, it's probably one of those things that's better to do than to watch.

Mishka Rushdie Momen, Ashley Fripp and Erdem Misirlioglu were the lucky recipients of Lang Lang's attentions, each getting about forty minutes to play a short piece then receive the young master's top tips.

Mishka was up first, a slight ballerina-like beauty who tackled Debussy's L'Isle Joyeuse with an impeccable daintiness reminiscent of her mentor, Imogen Cooper (in the audience and clenched with concern). It was undoubtedly, as Lang Lang sincerely praised her, "finished". But it was also more twinset and pearls than bare feet and chiffon.

What was to be done?

Debussy, Lang Lang pointed out, was an impressionist. Er, OK. (With an audience of tinies, mums, students, teachers, locals and assorted music lovers, I eventually grasped the remark was for our benefit not Mishka's.) Then he got down to the practical stuff. He got Mishka to run through the first few bars again and stopped her after her crescendo. It's not just about increasing dynamic he remarked. Debussy wanted rubato too.

At this point I recalled a recent Stephen Hough blog post on the very same subject (Stephen is by the way as brilliant at blogging as performing - do check him out in the Telegraph).

Anyone with half an ear can hear what's wrong with a performance, but it takes the skill and experience of a Lang Lang to work out how to put it right. Mishka did as Lang Lang suggested. Magic! - it was suddenly more Debussyesque. And so he carried on, adding layers of colour and nuance as she played stop-start for him. A little dynamic shift here, a touch of rubato there. When he couldn't find quite the right words, he hummed or swayed or stirred imaginary soup, but it all made sense somehow. Not only did the new-found watery shimmer sound more like Debussy, it sounded more personal, more like Mishka.

Chopin's Barcarolle Op.60 was Ashley's choice. Exquisitely coloured (as Lang Lang was quick to praise) but hammered out with a macho meatiness that reminded Lang Lang of a sonata and me of Beethoven. Chopin is not classical, he's romantic, Lang Lang pointed out (again for the audience). How to produce the rolling lilt of a true barcarolle, the sweep of the oar and the swell of the waves? Phrasing! That was what Ashley needed. Lang Lang went through it section by section - less crescendo here, a brighter note there, rebalancing the hands. Gradually the four-squareness loosened out. Positive, confident Ashley, was still there, but so was a more delicate, questioning sensibility. Another victory!

Last up was Erdem Misirlioglu with three Rachmaninoff preludes (4, 6 and 7).  Erdem, who only started playing at the age of nine, seemed of the three to have the greatest rapport with the piano. Lang Lang was quick to praise his sensitivity.

But why did the first two preludes drag so? The answer was simple. Too slow! said Lang Lang. Erdem was resistant at first, but Lang Lang insisted. A slight quickening of tempo, maybe only a few beats, and Erdem's playing was transformed as he breathed life into it. Not only that but, without Lang Lang needing to say anything, the faster pace allowed Erdem to ease up on pedalling, and the notes gained a new clarity. Result!

I have condensed enormously here - Lang Lang gave each student numerous very specific pointers. Perhaps not every single suggestion he made was right, and perhaps (inevitably) he ended up sharing his own ideas about the pieces as much as encouraging the students to find their own. Such is the nature of masterclasses. But there were more than enough sound and specific nuggets for them to take away and chew on. And as an insight into how Lang Lang approaches work himself, it was revelatory, something I'll bear in mind when I listen to his own performances later in the week.

RSS Feeds - a housekeeping notice

As from right now, this blog's RSS feed will switch from a full to a partial basis.

My apologies to readers who prefer to read posts in full straight from the feed, but this is the only way to deter reblogging parasites from swiping site content in full.

If you don't yet subscribe to the feed, go here for further details.

Royal Opera House 2009/10 season - all the details

Here first! - a full list of all the Royal Opera House's main stage productions for the 2009/10 season.

The 2009/10 Covent Garden season opens with neither bang nor whimper but with a credit-crunching concert performance on 7 September (repeated on 14 September). Makes a change from last year's Sun readers' special I suppose.

The opera in question is Donizetti's Linda di Chamounix, and the conductor is bel canto genius Mark Elder. The cast includes potential Next Big Things Stephen Costello, Eglise Gutierrez and Luciano Botelho, plus the incomparable Alessandro Corbelli, the first of several welcome appearances this season.

The first staged opera of the season is Nicholas Hytner's lego-loving Don Carlo, with - OMG!- Jonas Kaufmann !!! in the title role. John Tomlinson joins him as the Grand Inquisitor, and the rest of the cast is lifted straight from the first run - Marina Poplavskaya, Simon Keenlyside, fans' favourite Ferruccio Furlanetto, Sonia Ganassi and Pumeza Matshikiza.The conductor is Semyon Bychkov.

This season's contribution to the 2013 Wagnerversary is a new Christof Loy production of Tristan und Isolde. Antonio Pappano conducts Ben Heppner, Nina Stemme, Matti Salminen, Michael Volle and Sophie Koch.

Neigh! Francesco Zambello's ghastly Carmen returns in October, with the latest Covent Garden favourite Elina Garanca back for the title role, fighting off Roberto Alagna, Ildebrando d'Arcangelo, and a farmyard full of furry friends. Bertrand de Billy conducts. It's resuscitated again in June 2010 with a distinctly 'B' cast.

October also sees one of Richard Jones's more subtle and effective efforts back on stage - and attractively cast. The shouldn't-work-but-it-does double bill of Ravel's L'Heure Espagnole (Christine Rice, Yann Beuron, Christopher Maltman, Andrew Shore and Bonaventura Bottone) and Puccini's Gianni Schicchi (Thomas Allen, Maria Bengtsson and Stephen Costello) is conducted by Pappano.

Francesco Zambello steps into Tchaikovsky's The Slippers in November. The new production will be conducted by Alexander Polianichko and features some serious talent fresh from the Mariinsky - Olga Guryakova, Vsevolod Grivnov, Larissa Diadkova, Vladimir Matorin and Maxim Mikhailov.

John Schlesinger's elderly Der Rosenkavalier is dusted off in December. Kirill Petrenko conducts and the cast includes Soile Isokoski, Sophie Koch, Thomas Allen and Lucy Crowe.

Littering the December and January schedules is the inevitable La Bohème. This time Andris Nelsons conducts most of the double-cast performances, which begin with Piotr Beczala and Hibla Gerzmava and end with not a few tbc's.

Robert Lepage's intermittently effective Rake's Progress returns in January 2010. Ingo Metzmacher, Toby Spence (a Tom Rakewell tdf), Kate Royal, Kyle Ketelsen and Stephanie Blythe promise much on the musical side.

Female conductor alert! Top Lisboan Julia Jones wields the baton over Jonathan Miller's Cosi fan Tutte in January. The cast includes Charles Castronovo and Sally Matthews.

A new Richard Jones production of Prokofiev's The Gambler in February is conducted by Pappano, with a cast including Roberto Sacca, Angela Denoke, John Tomlinson and Jurgita Adamonyte.

Plácido Domingo's first appearance of the season is as a tenor. Graham Vick's acclaimed production of Handel's Tamerlano (recorded in Madrid and available on DVD con Plácido) makes its first visit to Covent Garden in March with Christianne Stoijn, Sara Mingardo and Christine Schäfer. Baroque specialist Ivor Bolton conducts.

Bill Bryden's family-friendly The Cunning Little Vixen returns in March with Emma Matthews, Christopher Maltman and Emma Bell, though the presence of Charles Mackerras on the podium has to be the main draw.

Caurier and Leiser's lovely Il Turco in Italia is back in April, with Maurizio Benini conducting, and Aleksandra Kursak, Colin Lee, Alessandro Corbelli, Thomas Allen and Ildebrando d'Arcangelo in the cast.

Aida is subjected to the David McVicar magic in April. His new production is conducted by Nicola Luisotti and features Micaela Carosi, Marcelo Alvarez and Luciana D'Intino. Bare naked elephants?

The last of the Big Three, Richard Eyre's subtly intelligent La Traviata, makes its annual appearance in May and July. This time her name's in the programme - Our first Lady of the Camellias is the fabulous former Netrebko sub Ermonela Jaho. Joining her in her long-awaited return to Covent Garden in May are Saimir Pirgu and Dmitri Hvorostovsky. July's 'B' Violetta is Angela Gheorghiu, who makes do with James Valenti and Zeljko Lucic. Yves Abel conducts.

Laurent Pelly's now-legendary La Fille du Régiment returns in May with the unbeatable original cast of Juan Diego Flórez, Natalie Dessay, Alessandro Corbelli and Felicity Palmer back in place. Bruno Campanella conducts.

What would tempt Sir Colin Davis back into the pit? How about David McVicar's Le Nozze di Figaro? Erwin Schrott, Camilla Tilling, Maruisz Kwiecen. Annette Dasch, Soile Isokoski and Christine Schäfer head the strong cast.

Antonio Pappano conducts Laurent Pelly's new Manon, coming to Covent Garden in June with the announced cast including Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazón. Anyone fancy a bet?

In one of those rare operatic fairy stories, June sees a baritone with less than a year's experience thrust into a leading role at Covent Garden. Yes, it's Plácido Domingo again, and this time he's Simon Boccanegra. Antonio Pappano conducts a strong cast including Marina Poplavskaya, Ferruccio Furlanetto and Joseph Calleja. It's the 1991 Elijah Moshinsky production by the way, not the Ian Judge one seen last year.

The season ends in July 2010 with the first revival of David McVicar's controversial Salome. Angela Denoke takes the central role, with Johan Reuter as Jokanaan. Hartmut Haenchen conducts.

No link yet, but more details expected on the Royal Opera House website sometime next week.

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*******UPDATE 22/4*******

The Royal Opera House's press releases are now available on their website. Go here for the summary, here for the opera details and here for the ballet.

Roberto Alagna - La Scala? I'd rather sing in the shower

In front of a small audience at the Royal Opera House last night, Roberto Alagna revealed the reason he's unlikely to pair up on stage with the missus in the near future. Apparently, it's all about making her job easier. When Angela performs with Roberto, he says it's twice as much work, because it's like being on stage with two people at once - the character and the husband. Whereas with other tenors, she can just forget they're there [shocked laughter all round] and get on with her own thing. Oh, and he also admitted she can be 'rude'. OK! Cleared that one up!

The main conclusion to be drawn from Christopher Cook's gently teasing interview was that Roberto just loves to talk. Preferably about himself. But he does so with such self-deprecating charm that it's impossible not to warm to him. What might come across as vain and self-serving in print simply sounds frank in person.

Roberto cannily deflected any too probing lines of inquiry in favour of amusing anecdotage, but we did get a little more on the legendary 2006 La Scala Aida walkout.

According to Roberto, all the trouble started because 'four people' warned him they would boo when he sang the line 'Un esercito di prodi da me guidato', as a protest against Romano Prodi, who would be in the audience. So Roberto substituted another word for prodi when he sang, and that turned the conspirators against him. There was another five minutes of paranoid dog-ate-my-homework theorising involving sugar and policemen and Stéphane Lissner, but I got completely lost. Though Roberto seems to have it straight in his own mind, I can't help suspecting he was just jelz of the thonged-up assets of Roberto Bolle.

He has, he says, now been invited back to La Scala. But he turned down the chance to do Carmen and Simon Boccanegra with Plácido. "I'd rather sing here" - at Covent Garden - he said, "or in my shower".

Venezuelan invasion begins - Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra hit London

Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolívar / Dudamel - Royal Festival Hall, 14 April 2009 

After their amazing, unforgettable 2007 Proms concert, Gustavo Dudamel and the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra were back in town to light up the South Bank for the first night of a short residency.

They'd won the game as soon as they stepped on stage, judging by the applause. It's an enormous band - twelve double basses, at least forty violins - but they all squeezed on somehow.

Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra was the opener, a clever choice that demonstrates clearly that the orchestra can handle more than just fiesta music, as well as providing plenty of individual chances to shine. The woodwinds were particularly impressive, their unerringly accurate intonation a rare delight south of the river, but the whole orchestra was immaculately-drilled. The size of the band provides a depth and richness of sound few conventional symphony orchestras can match, but it could also prove unwieldy. Not so in the expert hands of Gustavo Dudamel - even the quicksilver twists and turns of the last movement were crisp and fleet.

He drove Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony relentlessly.  It was exciting, edge-of-seat stuff, but at the same time I would have appreciated more subtlety here and there - the first movement's woodwind slivers airier, like glints of light on water, the brass fanfares more stately and monumental. The potential is there, and these musicians have grasped the most important lesson of all, which is how to listen and how to play as part of a greater whole. All they need now is the age and experience to hone their talents to the final degree.

The standing ovation erupted on the last note, maybe even before, and the lights dipped for a quick onstage costume change. Off came the DJs, on went the famed Venezuela jackets, and they launched into their party-piece Ginastera and Bernstein, complete with dancing violinists, twirling horns, and recklessly juggled drum sticks. The audience went wild, and wilder still as jackets were daintily removed and flung out into eagerly awaiting hands.

This orchestra doesn't produce the most refined playing you'll ever hear, but that's so far from the point it's irrelevant. What it does - and what no other orchestra right now seems able to do - is simply to bring people together in the joy of music. Simple, but not easy, and nobody does it better.

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Il trovatore at Covent Garden FAIL FAIL FAIL

Il trovatore - Royal Opera House, 13 April 2009 (first night)

If the first night singing didn't quite hit dress rehearsal standards (I wonder why?) it was still the high point of this otherwise dismal production. A stop-start narrative and half-cooked characters make Il trovatore not the easiest opera to stage. Nevertheless, it's musically strong, truly inventive and a production that steers the audience away from too much left-brain analysis can capitalise on the thrills buried not too far beneath the surface.

But not this one. The monumental sets with their giant pillars and furnaces and gratings are handsome but randomly irrelevant - a palace patio, a railway station, an industrial pizzeria. And when a character really needs some help from the furniture, there's nothing there. How can Leonora mistake Luna for Manrico when they're both in plain view in front of her? Now if Roberto Alagna had been given a nice pillar to hide behind, we would all have sniggered less.

Not that there is much action. Characters barely engage with each other, movement is restricted to stock operatic gesture. It's as if they've all rehearsed on different continents from an Acting for Dummies video and come together for the first time tonight. 

Add murky lighting, top off with thumb-twiddling set changes every twenty minutes, and what little momentum is built up in the turgid, static scenes evaporates. The final nail in this particular coffin is the unintentional comedy of the last scene, with everyone writhing on the floor like salted slugs.

Oh well, at least the sword fights (always a ROH strong point) provided a few seconds thrill.

Dmitri Hvorostovsky's dignified Luna provided the vocal highlight. Am I abusing my power? Luna asks himself as he realises there's only one way he's ever going to get the girl. This is no cartoon villain, as Hvorostovsky's noble military bearing emphasises, but a victim of his own desires. 

Roberto Alagna's vocal production didn't have the ease of the rehearsal, and he often seemed disengaged - though he did manage to pull out his big numbers with a certain panache. And I was touched to see what a generous colleague he proved to Malgorzata Walewska, another singer whose form had dipped somewhat. At least she managed to whip up some gypsy passion (an emotion sorely lacking elsewhere). Her harsh, throaty vocals wouldn't pass muster in every role, but they added a certain dramatic integrity to her Azucena.

Sondra Radvanovsky was the clear audience favourite. She showed much more emotional involvement in her character than she had at the rehearsal, but at the expense of a degree of vocal control. It's a big, jolie-laide sort of a voice, and I'm not sure yet if I actually like it, but right now Radvanovsky's miles ahead of any other Leonora.

Mikhail Petrenko (Ferrando) and Monika-Evelin Liiv (Ines) were again strikingly impressive.

Not so Carlo Rizzi. Although the Royal Opera House orchestra played cleanly and accurately for him, he just could not keep them together with the singers, racing ahead for every cabaletta, dragging his heels behind whenever the pace slowed. But though he took a maximalist line, with changes of pace or scoring highlighted (often grotesquely so), nothing could compensate for the depressingly inert spectacle on stage. Time to throw this particular baby on the fire if you ask me.

I should perhaps point out that the majority of the tourist-heavy holiday audience were massively enthusiastic about the whole thing - there's clearly no accounting for drink taste.

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