While the luxurious cruise ship explores "unchartered territory from Hamburg to Majorca", Beczala will join Elina Garanča and Johann Strauss Quartet in serenading the passengers. A snip at €2,190 and up.
I'm guessing Simon Keenlyside did his own grey hairspray* on Monday night and forgot to check the back. I mean, he can't have been going for the caramelised badger look deliberately. Can he?
It was part of his stab at playing Germont much older than I can recall any other singer attempting in this production - even last month's Leo Nucci. Accessorised with a walking stick that he sometimes forgot he needed and a stoop that failed to mask his natural gymnast's posture, he recalled my own brother's portrayal of Polonius. In the school play, aged 16.
Roméo et Juliette (Gounod) - Royal Opera House, 27 October 2010
Gentlemen of the chorus - if you're forced to don clinging tights, at least demand an Acosta-sized dance belt to sweeten the deal.
Nicolas Joël's 1994 production of Roméo et Juliette is medieval Verona as a French and Saunders sketch. It's been revived only once since - as a Gheorghiu/Alagna vehicle - but with no megastars to demand its resuscitation this time round, one has to wonder why the Royal Opera House dug it up. Devoid of psychological insight or dramatic impetus, it serves the opera poorly. Gounod's music does its best to sweep you up in the young lovers' disastrous passion; Joël simply has you sniggering at the number of knobbly knees and saggy y-fronts on display.
Netrebko sang Il bacio by Luigi Arditi, followed by the duet Quanto amore from L'elisir d'amore with Erwin Schrott, who later treated the audience to some tango. With Piotr Beczala she performed a duet from La bohème. Beczala returned for Ah! lève toi, soleil from Roméo et Juliette. Other performers included Christopher Maltman, Mikhail Petrenko, Joel Prieto and Anna Prohaska.
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