Intermezzo

Opera Holland Park ticket offer

All remaining tickets for the first two performances of OHP's new Adriana Lecouvreur are reduced to £30 - roughly half price.

The dates are Thursday 24 and Saturday 26 July, and you need to book online using the promo code ADRIANA30.

Cheap tickets for Opera Holland Park

Remaining tickets for tonight's L'Elisir d'amore are on sale for just £20 (less than half price).

Call the box office on 0300 9991000 to book.

I gioielli della Madonna in Holland Park

I gioielli della Madonna - Opera Holland Park, 23 July 2013

London operagoers in search of a spot of incest were spoilt for choice last night.  Over at the Royal Albert Hall, Siegmund got acquainted with Sieglinde in Die Walküre. Just a mile away, moody Neapolitan blacksmith Gennaro was busy raping his slutty adoptive sister in the latest of Opera Holland Park's obscure verismo revivals, I gioielli della Madonna. Not all of OHP's past efforts have hit the mark, but these 'jewels' are a real 'buried treasure'. Oh yes.

Sex controversy at Opera Holland Park

The peacocks have competition. A  robin has built its nest backstage at Opera Holland Park reports the Evening Standard.

“He’s known as Giacomo, after Puccini,” Mike Volpe, general manager of OHP, told the Standard.  “He’s moved his nest closer to the stage so we think  he likes the opera.”

Hang on -"he"?

According to the RSPB, who should know about these things, the robins' nest is built by the female alone, and she alone incubates the eggs.So unless Mr Volpe has got close enough to examine his new tenant's credentials, it seems a more feminine name might be in order.

The RSPB also point out that robins "will easily desert the nest if they think that the nest has been discovered."

So let's hope they're not reading this.

Eugene Onegin, Opera Holland Park

Yevgeny Onegin - Opera Holland Park, 13 July 2012

Proof that opera companies never talk to each other. With recent stagings by English Touring Opera (conventional but revelatory) and ENO (best forgotten) cutting into each other's audiences, Eugene Onegin is the opera of the year. Now Opera Holland Park enter the fray.

Opera Holland Park do the double

Zanetto / Gianni Schicchi - Opera Holland Park, 22 June 2012 (opening night)

Kudos to Opera Holland Park for continuing, year after year, to revive long-forgotten Italian operas. But in the case of Mascagni's one act Zanetto, I wonder if it was worth the effort.  The ruminative non-plot and politely anonymous music make its 40 minutes pass like four hours.