Intermezzo

Les Troyens, Royal Opera House - with photos

Les Troyens - Royal Opera House, 25 June 2012 (first night)

Covent Garden’s new production of this difficult opera falls short of an unblemished triumph, with a tendency to emphasise the work’s inherent weaknesses. But some high-quality singing and a couple of stunning coups de théâtre did much to compensate for a shortage of musical and visual coherence rooted in the score itself.

Anna Nicole ( . Y . ) premiere - have the Royal Opera House boobed?

Anna Nicole - Royal Opera House, 17 February 2011 (world premiere)

After weeks of sustained hype, the like of which the Royal Opera House has never seen, the most impressive thing about the Anna Nicole show is its polish.

Richard Jones's splashy, cartoonish production is Vegas-perfect. It catches the eye and tells the story, in a series of tightly-focussed interviews to camera. The orchestra plays immaculately (so far as I could tell on a first-time listen) for Pappano and the cast is unsurpassable from top to bottom.

Anna Nicole the Opera ( . Y . ) in photos

Mark-Anthony Turnage's new opera Anna Nicole opened at the Royal Opera House tonight with even more celebs in the seats than on the stage. Cameras and TV crews lurked in the foyer to catch the varied likes of Graham Norton, Dame Vivienne Westwood, Mike Leigh and Boy George as they entered. Is this what the ROH mean by attracting a new audience? I'd love to know how many people apart from me actually paid for their seats. Sadly, although the ROH scored the coup of luring John Paul Jones to play bass on stage, his Them Crooked Vultures colleagues Dave Grohl and Josh Homme were nowhere to be seen.

I'll write more about the opera - or is it a musical? - later, but here are some before, during and after photos to be going on with.

Tannhauser at the Royal Opera House

Tannhäuser - Royal Opera House, 11 December 2010 (first night)

The Royal Opera House's publicity blurb describes Tannhäuser as "Wagner’s great battle of the sensual and the spiritual". But there's no sex and and barely any religion in Tim Albery's thoughtful but often perplexing new production. In their place is a drab tussle between grim and grimmer with a few class overtones tossed in. It's salvaged mainly by the inspired conducting of Semyon Bychkov and some splendid singing. 

new Royal Opera House Tannhauser in pictures

Tim Albery's new production of Tannhäuser opens at the Royal Opera House tonight.

In the title role we have Johan Botha, pictured in the chair in which he spends most of the opera. OK, so the camera adds 10 pounds, but where did the other extra 200 come from? Check overleaf to find out (and double click on photos to enlarge. If you dare.)