a command performance

At Bath Opera’s Beatrice & Benedict I felt as if the performance had been laid on for my benefit. When I bought my ticket I chose a seat in the middle of the second row next to some that had already been taken, but in fact there was no one in the front row, and no one else for several seats on either side of me in my row! Perhaps my ‘neighbours’ were complimentary tickets that weren’t used. The drawback was that the orchestra (in front of the stage this year) slightly swamped the singers (even without trombones) and the conductor occasionally blocked my view. Still, with Berlioz there is no harm in being reminded that there’s an orchestra there.

The audition notes reveal the director’s thoughts on this opera: ‘quite a strange work’. I previously saw it with WNO and so had some idea how to approach it; enjoy the music and don’t expect too much from the libretto. Julia O’Connor and Rupert Drury (paired also in Peter Grimes of a couple of years ago) enjoyed sparring as the title couple, and I particularly appreciated Gill Clark (Ursula)’s variety of facial expressions.

The chorus as usual were very engaged and agile as they dodged round quite a cluttered set. There was a swing at the centre of the stage, hung from a pergola, and I was interested to see what would happen when it was used, but the people who sat in it kept their feet firmly on the ground and it wasn’t there in the second part.

An innovation was a quiz – match the Don to the opera he appears in, which I attempted though not very successfully.

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