Così fan tutte - Opera Holland Park, 16 June 2012
The weather had improved marginally by Saturday - theoretically midsummer - but no-one was dressing for the calendar. Even the tutelary goddess of W11, Dame Lady Antonia Fraser, was wisely wrapped in full winter wear as a devious wind flicked scarves into eyes and hair into lipgloss.
Pity the singers, with their expanses of 18th century bosomage exposed to every chilly draft.
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The Marriage of Figaro - English National Opera, 5 October 2011 (first night)
In Fiona Shaw's new ENO production, Barbarina, bottle in hand, is pissed as a fart from start to finish. She even throws up in a corner at one point. Would she really go for Cherubino or the Count otherwise, Shaw seems to be asking. Like a Geordie lass on a Friday night, Shaw thinks it's the beer goggles that make Barbarina such an easy target for her randy suitors. She allowed Mary Bevan to turn this usually throwaway role into something worth watching.
But more importantly Shaw points to a whole new direction in Mozart interpretation. What if Donna Anna succumbed to Don Giovanni because she was three sheets to the wind, and only chucked him out when she sobered up? What if Dorabella and Fiordiligi warmed up with a few beers before grabbing the 'Albanians' - whose disguises they were too plastered to twig? What if the entire field of Mozartian female morals could be explained away as an anatomical response to booze? Has Fiona Shaw opened up a can of Fosters here?
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Le nozze di Figaro - Opera Holland Park, 2 July 2011 (first night)
Liam Steel's new production of Le nozze di Figaro gets a Downton Abbey update to early 20th century England, with Figaro himself an unnervingly camp Jeeves-like butler/fixer. Otherwise it's remarkably similar to David McVicar's Royal Opera House production, right down to the fussy clutter of underlings in every scene.
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It's not often that ENO gets its marketing right but - praise where praise is due - it did a great job with last night's showing of the operatically-inclined 1981 cult movie Diva. Presented by the Secret Cinema folk, the movie was prefaced in usual Secret Cinema style with a few scenes acted out in the bars by suitably costumed actors.
More importantly, it was a showcase for the talents of Elizabeth Llewellyn, a soprano bearing a passing physical resemblance to the titular diva, Wilhelmenia Fernandez. For ten minutes and with just a piano in support, Elizabeth held an audience of restless moviegoers silent and spellbound with no more than the arresting emotional resonance of her voice. The movie is all style, but Elizabeth has real substance too what an advertisement for ENO.
She performs on 13 April at St John's Smith Square in the Rosenblatt Recitals series - an essential night out.
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