Assuming the World Darts Championships haven't put you off fat blokes with dodgy haircuts for life, it's time to think about opera again.
Another round of Royal Opera House booking opens soon (13 January for Friends; 1 February for mortals) in the quarterly ritual that pits some of the world's finest voices against a crop of charmless revivals and foolhardy experiments.
First up is Aida, opening on 11 March. Probably Glasgow's finest living opera director David McVicar scored a rare miss with this 2010 effort, back for a swift revival. Micaela Carosi again attempts the title role. Roberto Alagna as Radames, Olga Borodina as Amneris and Michael Volle as Amonasro promise improvement elsewhere, though with most parts double or triple cast make sure you book on the right night to catch them. The conducting of Fabio Luisi is another good reason to give this elephant-free zone a try.
Jürgen Flimm's dull Fidelio returns on 29 March with Kirill Petrenko commanding the pit. Nina Stemme should make a superb Leonore. Endrik Wottrich returns as Florestan, Kurt Rydl is Rocco and Willard White is Don Fernando. Bear in mind when booking that a lot of the action in this production takes place at the sides, so restricted view seats will live up to their name.
A new production of The Tsar's Bride by Paul Curran debuts on 14 April. An excellent cast includes the fabulous Marina Poplavskaya, Johan Reuter, Ekaterina Gubanova, Dmitry Popov, Paata Burchuladze and Jurgita Adamonyte, and Mark Elder conducts.
Jonas Kaufmann was a welcome distraction from Benoît Jacquot's tired old production of Werther on its loan to the Paris Opera last year. But who knows who will fill the title role when it opens at Covent Garden on 5 May? Rolando Villazón is scheduled. Many expect him to cancel, but based on his recent form I think there's still a chance he may try it. Otherwise it's up in the air, though it's not realistic to hope for Kaufmann. Pappano conducts and Sophie Koch is Charlotte, with Eri Nakamura as Sophie.
On paper, Simon Keenlyside looks like the main attraction in the revival of Phyllida Lloyd's Macbeth which opens on 24 May. But watch out for Liudmyla Monastyrska as Lady Macbeth, Dimitri Pittas as Macduff and Raymond Aceto as Banquo too. Pappano conducts - another reason to catch the show.
Liudmyla Monastyrska sings Santuzza's Voi lo sapete from Cavalleria Rusticana:
I’ve just received an e-mail from ROH: “We are very grateful to you for your support of the Royal Opera House through the Friends of Covent Garden and would like to show our appreciation through this special invitation.
You, together with a small number of your fellow Friends who regularly book tickets in the Amphitheatre, are invited to book for some performances of Aida on 10 January from 10am . You will be able to purchase up to four tickets in the stalls at £110 each instead of the published price. There are a limited number of tickets available, and I very much hope that you will take this option up for this first revival of The Royal Opera’s 2010 Aida, one of Verdi’s best-loved operas, with unforgettable music and an excellent cast.
Orchestra Stalls are £110 (usually £219.50, £204.20, £194, £178.70 and £168.50) for the performances 22 | 30 March at 7.30pm; 26 March at 7pm; 2 | 6 | 13 | 15 April at 7.30pm and 10 April at 6.30pm.”
What does this mean?
By the way, you would have to pay me much more to listen to Micaela Carosi again...
Posted by: Opera Beginner | 06 January 2011 at 08:33 PM
These are the B and C cast nights, which presumably the ROH are not expecting to sell well - that's usually the only reason for discounting.
They're probably also hoping that once regular customers like you have experienced the luxury of legroom and armrests, you'll be tempted to book more stalls seats in future.
Posted by: inter mezzo | 07 January 2011 at 12:07 AM
I got that offer too, and even if I had already been planning to go on one of those nights it would not have been anything like cheap enough to tempt me. In fact I am not planning to go to Aida at all this time, except perhaps to the rehearsal.
Posted by: Miriam | 07 January 2011 at 02:05 PM
Mid winter as it is, we can look forward to the shrieking peacocks, intrusive helicopters and balmy evenings at Holland Park.
The booking form does not mention the cheapo £10 seats, however:
www.rbkc.gov.uk/subsites/operahollandpark/booktickets.aspx
Posted by: Vecchio John | 07 January 2011 at 02:30 PM
I got the email too - along with half the planet so it seems !
Although not tempted by £110 for the stalls - I am thinking Olga Borodina might be worth a listen from somewhere cheap !
I was just browsing the ROH site - and one of the links on the AIDA page is the previous Brussels production.
http://www.roh.org.uk/merchandise/display.aspx?id=695&showcase=454&category=422
I saw it at ROH but can't remember much of the details of the performance - apart from the fact it was unremittingly awful. I would dearly love to know the worldwide sales of this is.
Posted by: amac | 07 January 2011 at 05:06 PM
Hmnnn, I pretty much always sit in the orchestra stalls, but I'm not sure I'd agree with your description "luxury of legroom and armrests"!
Many of the stalls seats are extremely narrow and there is precious little legroom, much less than at some of the continental houses or at the Met, for example. I'm quite tall (6'2") but very slim and always find them pretty uncomfortable.
Personally, I'd be glad if they ripped out a couple of rows and increased the ticket prices slightly so we could have some *space*! Similarly at the Wigmore, where the problem is if anything even worse (except for the few extra wide "business class" seats inserted to create the horizontal stagger).
Posted by: MikeG | 08 January 2011 at 03:20 PM