Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Glyndebourne, May 2011

This new production of Meistersinger by David McVicar elicited thunderous applause at the end. And what an end it was, with Hans Sachs’s monologue being given its full force in a way I’ve not seen before.

Finley as Sachs in the final scene of Act III, all photos by Alastair Muir

When Walther refuses the award of Mastership from Pogner, Gerald Finley as Sachs draws him aside to stage right, and his first few lines, Verachtet mir die Meister nicht …, begging Walther not to spurn the Masters, are sung privately to him while the others talk in confusion among themselves. As Sachs moves forward with his great monologue, explaining how the Masters have nurtured true art through difficult times in the past, he moves to stage left and grasps Beckmesser by the arm. This is a nice touch because the poor old town clerk, pompous ass though he is, has made such a frightful mess of things and was moved to shed a tear as Walther sang his prize song. Then as Sachs continues to develop his great monologue he rushes round the stage urgently addressing everyone. His Hab’ Acht!, when he warns of German Art falling under false rule, is a wonderful moment. There is nothing sententious here, nothing to be taken amiss, just an appeal not to be led astray by false and foreign ideas, and it resonated with me as a striking comment against that awful 12-year rule known as the Third Reich. The chorus comes in with enormous force, Eva places the wreath on Sachs’s head, and he pitches it up to the revellers at the top of the bandstand. The curtain stayed up, the audience roared their approval, and the performers and production team on stage received a hugely vocal standing ovation.

Some say that Glyndebourne is too small a venue for Meistersinger, and it’s only their second Wagner production, but it was terrific. The designs by Vicki Mortimer are simply wonderful. I loved Sachs’s study in the first part of Act III with the wonderful summer morning light entering through the window. Paule Constable’s lighting is superbly calm, but also thrillingly dramatic as that warning shaft of light emerges in Act II at the moment Walther and Eva are about to elope in the darkness.

Beckmesser and Sachs in Act II

This is just before Beckmesser arrives to serenade Eva, and here and in the other two acts, Johannes Martin Kränzle was perfect in both voice and dramatic interpretation. He took full advantage of David McVicar’s clever production ideas. When he creeps into Sachs’s study in Act III the music allows time for plenty of side play and it was very funny: his tumbling over the bench, the paper sticking on his hand, and then his shoe, the boxes falling out of the shelves. It was all done with perfect comic timing.

Kränzle and Finley as Beckmessser and Sachs were the stars of this performance, and Finley opened out Sachs’s role in interesting ways. In the Flieder monologue of Act II, as he thinks of the Masters’ rejection of Walther’s Act I performance, he exhibits huge frustration. And in the Wahn monologue of Act III he shows enormous anguish, even kicking a chair over at the beginning, but calming down as he sings of his beloved Nuremberg and the customs and contentment in deed and work. Then after he expostulates about the events of the previous night, the London Philharmonic under the brilliant direction of Vladimir Jurowski, rises beautifully to the challenge of Sachs’s Der Flieder war’s: Johannisnacht! (It was the Elder-tree: Midsummer’s Eve!) Nun aber kam Johannistag! (But now there comes Midsummer’s Day!). These great monologues by Sachs are almost always stirringly sung, but Finley brought them out with huge emotion. A great performance.

Pogner enters with Eva in the final scene

His interaction with the other cast members was excellent, and the quintet in Act III was beautifully sung with Marco Jentzsch, Anna Gabler, Michaela Selinger, and Topi Lehtipuu in the roles of Walther, Eva, Magdalena and David. Alastair Miles was excellent as Eva’s father Pogner, and Marco Jentzsch was a strongly voiced Walther with a heroic tone. Anna Gabler also sang strongly as Eva, but perhaps a bit too forcefully for my taste. When Eva goes to see Sachs early in Act III, I’m used to her being very anxious, but here she seemed ill-tempered, so that rather than seeing her as a glorious future wife for Walther, I wondered if he knew what he was letting himself in for. Also in Act II when she hits Sachs she appeared more as a leading lady for Richard Strauss rather than Wagner. Her young nurse Magdalena often comes over as the more forceful and difficult of the two, but here it was the reverse, and Michaela Selinger’s well-sung Magdelena seemed perfectly charming. While on the topic of performance, Mats Almgren sang beautifully as the Night Watchman.

The jugglers in Act III

Among many lovely points about this production, I rather liked Augustin Moser, one of the mastersingers, bringing his small daughter into Act I where she sits on his lap until Frau Moser retrieves her. This was a nice touch, but I was not so wild about the fight at the end of that act. There were more women in nightshirts than men, and the choreography for the rent-a-mob fight crew was just too much. This is supposed to be an impromptu row caused by all the noise, and it should look like it. By contrast, the choreography for the dance in the final scene of Act III was very good: the girls from Fürth swishing their skirts, slapping their thighs and dancing in circular formation in the bandstand, with the boys joining in on the outside. I loved the jugglers, particularly those on stilts — they were brilliant. And the way Pogner brought Eva in on his arm reminded me briefly of the recent Royal Wedding. Then immediately Sachs came on the chorus made a glorious sound, and Finley’s Euch macht ihr’s leicht, mir macht ihr’s schwer . . . (For you it’s easy, but you make it hard for me . . .) was riveting. This was Finley’s first Hans Sachs, and as he matures into the role it will only get better.

My view of the stage from the upper circle was perfect, and if you can get ticket returns anywhere in the theatre, go for it at any price. Performances continue until June 26 — for more details click here.

Anna Nicole, Royal Opera, Covent Garden, February 2011

This is an opera for today’s celebrity culture, where parts of the media, eager for salacious details, are happy to pick on anyone available. But Anna Nicole Smith was not just anyone — she worked as a stripper and snagged an 89 year-old billionaire, J. Howard Marshall I, though it’s said they never lived together. He died in 1995, fourteen months after their wedding, and Anna Nicole herself died in 2007, aged 39. The contest over his will, however, is still alive and has now reached the US Supreme Court.

The marriage to Marshall

Act I of this new opera by Mark-Anthony Turnage tells of Anna’s life up to the wedding with Howard Marshall, including her first marriage, but it starts with her as a sex symbol, singing, “I want to blow you all — blow you all —— a kiss”. And those are also her last words before she dies, riddled with drugs, following her son, who died of a drug overdose. Almost at the start the cameras appear, cleverly shown as heads of performers in opaque black body stockings. At first there are two, but by the end there is nothing but cameras, and Anna herself. Then, finally, she too is covered in black and the lights go out.

Anna Nicole, Stern and the new baby, all photos by Bill Cooper

Act I was deliberately tacky, but Eva-Maria Westbroek as Anna Nicole carried it off well, looking gorgeous. Then she had a boob job, which did not improve her appearance, and by the end of Act II she looked bloated, which was of course the intention. Alan Oke was suitably frail as old man Marshall, and Gerald Finley gave a strong performance as Anna’s lawyer and third husband, Stern. He was the one promoting her, and had the garish idea of filming the birth of her new baby — his baby he thought — so that it will be broadcast as ‘pay per view’. But as she tells him later, “The baby’s not yours!” Indeed Anna had many lovers, but that is one thing that didn’t quite come over. She must have been a very sexy lady, yet the sexuality on stage was very stylised and lacked allure. That may have been intentional, showing an entirely materialistic attitude to life, alleviated in her case only at the very end as she shows real emotion. There is, however, one thread of sensible humanity running through the opera in the form of Anna’s mother, superbly sung and portrayed by Susan Bickley. She and Eva-Maria Westbroek formed excellent focal points for Turnage’s music, which was remarkably melodious, with its jazz elements reminiscent of Kurt Weill.

The production itself, by Richard Jones, is nothing if not colourful — even the Royal Opera House curtains were replaced by pink ones with Anna Nicole motifs, and there were photographs of her around the balconies and above the stage. The theme is of course tackiness, and the libretto by Richard Thomas pulls no punches in terms of coarse language. Perhaps there is something thrilling about defiance of conventional decorum, and as old man Marshall says, “Don’t grow old with grace. Grow old with disgrace”. The audience loved it, judging by the enthusiasm of the first night. Whether this success will last when the Royal Opera House is no longer pulling out the stops to promote it, remains to be seen, but Turnage’s music has a strong rhythmic pulse, and is well-served by Antonio Pappano’s conducting.

There are six performances in total, ending on March 4 — for more details click here.

Anna Nicole, Royal Opera House Insight Evening, February 2011

This ‘Insight’ evening gave the audience some background to the forthcoming new opera by Mark-Anthony Turnage, and it was most informative and well presented. For a review of the first night, click here.

“What’s it like to see your picture all over the London Underground?” asked Elaine Padmore, director of opera, referring to the ubiquitous adverts featuring Eva-Maria Westbroek as Anna Nicole Smith. For anyone out of the loop on this, Anna Nicole was a model, stripper and sex symbol who wanted to be the next Marilyn Monroe. At one of her performances in Houston she met, and later married, J. Howard Marshall II, who was 89 at the time. As a young man he started a law career at Yale, later worked for the federal government, then left to join the oil industry, made a fortune and went into the energy business. Their marriage lasted fourteen months until his death in 1995 at the age of 90. There was then a legal row about his will (for an estate worth a billion pounds), which did not include Anna Nicole nor one of his sons. The son died in 2006, Anna Nicole died in 2007 (aged 39), and the case has now advanced to the Supreme Court.

“I think she really loved him”, answered Eva-Maria Westbroek, “[he] made her feel wonderful”. Gerald Finley will sing Anna Nicole’s third husband Howard K Stern (Howard Marshall was her second), and he commented that, “This is a feast of [Mark-Anthony Turnage’s] talent as a composer . . . he has such a strong rhythmic pulse”. Antonio Pappano, who will conduct it, commented on the balance of strings compared to the large complement of wind along with a variety of percussion and other instruments, such as an electric bass, not normally heard in an orchestra. He described the music in the first act as ‘zany’, while in Act 2 it gets ‘bigger’. Turnage has a strong background in jazz, and this ‘opera’ is being treated to some extent as a musical. Will it be like Kurt Weill? No one mentioned his name, but they did mention Zeitoper, and Krenek’s Johnny spielt auf. We will have to wait and see about the music, but the lyrics already intrigue me, and an example was given, reminding me of Cole Porter’s You’re the Top. The man in charge of the libretto is Richard Thomas, who received an Olivier Award for his score to Jerry Springer — The Opera. As Turnage said, the words come first and the music follows, but there has obviously been a strong interchange between Thomas and Turnage, and as Gerald Finley said, “After the first ten days of working there was a new script”.

When this opens on February 17 it all has to be entirely ready. Opera is not like theatre or musicals where you get a run at it first in a series of previews. In this case the ROH have used ‘workshops’ to play that role, and already one important change has been made. Originally they were going to abandon surtitles, because there’s some subtle ‘miking’ and they thought the singers would be readily heard. But as soon as the orchestra came into play they realised surtitles would be necessary, and though these won’t cover all the words, there will be enough. That’s a great relief, and I already look forward to reporting on it after the first night, and again later in the run. It sounds very exciting, and I believe tickets are now hard to come by.

There are six performances, running from February 17 to March 4 — for details, click here.

Les pêcheurs de perles, in concert, Royal Opera, Covent Garden, October 2010

Bizet wrote this opera when he was 24, during the summer of 1863 after returning to Paris from a three year stint in Rome. It was commissioned by Carvalho for the Théâtre Lyrique using as librettists Cormon and Carré, who had recently written Les pêcheurs de Catane (Catane, or Catania, being a coastal town in Sicily) for another French composer, Aimé Maillart. It’s reported that when they heard Bizet’s music they regretted not providing him with a better libretto, and it is indeed rather weak. The problem of how to bring the opera to a close was contentious, and when it was revived in Paris after Bizet’s death, the management loved the baritone/tenor duet, Au fond du temple saint, but didn’t like the ending in which the chief fisherman Zurga burns down the village so that the lovers can escape. They commissioned a different ending, and the loss of the original score tended to discourage productions of this opera. However this performance was based on Brad Cohen’s recent reconstruction of the original.

The music is much better than the libretto, and as Halévy wrote at the time, “After listening to the work seriously three times, I persist in finding in it the rarest of virtues”. So how was this concert performance at Covent Garden? Certainly Antonio Pappano gave a fine account of the score. He started gently, producing melodious sounds from the orchestra. Unfortunately the famous baritone/tenor duet in the early part of Act I, with Gerald Finley as Zurga and American tenor John Osborn as Nadir, failed to catch fire. It’s such a familiar piece of music that one is liable to expect too much, but I think the problem was partly that the evening took a while to warm up. The singers really only got into their stride after American soprano Nicole Cabell had entered as the priestess, with whom both Zurga and Nadir are in love. Her name Leïla was the original title of the opera, which was to be set in Mexico, but later changed to the more exotic location of Sri Lanka. Ms. Cabell won the Cardiff Singer of the World competition in 2005, and she sang beautifully here — she was the star of the evening, definitely a soprano to watch out for. Finley, Osborn and Cabell were well backed up by American bass Raymond Aceto as the high priest Nourabad, singing firmly and strongly.

As the evening warmed up we were treated to a very fine duet between Osborn and Cabell in Act II, a lovely soliloquy by Finley in Act III, and some strong singing from the chorus. I imagine the second and final night of this production on Thursday will be terrific throughout.

Don Giovanni, Glyndebourne, July 2010

This production starts with a bang. The audience, seated in a lighted auditorium, is suddenly plunged into blackness as the first chord comes thundering from the orchestra. Then as the stage gradually lights up during the overture we see a cubical building of stone slowly rotating, showing different facets, and I thought of Dr. Who’s tardis. This turned out to be right on the mark, as the building later opens out to reveal various sets, the last of which shows a long table adorned for dining in a raked and dissolute room. The Commendatore appears from beneath, and drags the Don to hell at the front of the stage. This Jonathan Kent production is cleverly lit by Mark Henderson, and the designs by Paul Brown suggest a spooked version of La Dolce Vita in late 1950s Italy.

The End of the Party in Act I, Glyndebourne photo by Bill Cooper

Within this context, Gerald Finley is the perfect Don, suave and brutal. His killing of the Commendatore is done by dragging him to ground and clobbering him with a brick. After that, both he and Luca Pisaroni as Leporello performed with an insouciance that gave the impression either one would happily shop the other if push came to shove. Their singing had a clarity and attack that made them seem a nasty pair of scoundrels, and with such performances the rest of the cast could be almost passengers, yet there was some excellent support.

The Don with Zerlina, photo by Bill Cooper

Guido Loconsolo performed well as an unusually assertive Masetto, with his two-tone shoes and youthful physicality, and Anna Virovlansky as Zerlina was prettily seductive and absolutely infuriating in her flippant responses to him. Kate Royal sang well as a mousey Donna Elvira, still in love with the Don but clearly incapable of attracting his attentions, apart from her angry assertions of his callous inconstancy, and William Burden was a very fine Don Ottavio, restrained yet powerful. Brindley Sherratt sang well as the Commendatore, and Anna Samuil did her own thing as Donna Anna, singing out strongly for her fans in the audience, yet never quite integrating with the rest of the cast.

The Commendatore crushes the Don, photo by Bill Cooper

This was, at least for me, a super production, and the first orchestral bang at the start was followed by another when the wedding party suddenly poured forth from the cubical structure, and a third at the start of Act II. My only complaint was that the Act II fight where the Don beats up Masetto was poorly done — the blow knocking Masetto to the ground was very wide of the mark — but this is something that should be rehearsed by fight director Alison de Burgh before every performance. However, Vladimir Jurowski did a superb job with the orchestra, which played with immense feeling for the light and shade of Mozart’s score.

Performances continue until 27th August.

Glyndebourne 75th Anniversary Concert, Glyndebourne, June 2009

Fireworks after the concert

This lovely concert, celebrating 75 years since the founding of the Glyndebourne Opera in 1934, featured several singers who are performing this season, mainly in Falstaff, but also in Rusalka, The Fairy Queen and Giulio Cesare. It also featured others with a strong Glyndebourne connection, such as Gerald Finley, Sarah Connolly, Emma Bell, and Kate Royal, who were all in the Glyndebourne chorus at one time, along with such luminaries as Thomas Allen, Sergei Leiferkus, Felicity Lott, and Anne Sofie von Otter. The orchestra played stirringly under the baton of music director Vladimir Jurowski, and I particularly liked the performances of Thomas Allen as Figaro in Act I of Rossini’s Barber, of Gerald Finley as Wolfram in Act III of Tannhäuser, of Sergei Leiferkus as the eponymous character in Rachmaninov’s Aleko, of Anne Sofie von Otter singing the habañera from Carmen, of Felicity Lott and Thomas Allen singing the delightful duet between Hanna and Danilo at the end of Lehar’s Merry Widow, plus Felicity Lott, Anne Sofie von Otter, and Lucy Crowe in the final trio from Rosenkavalier. A list of what was performed is given below — unfortunately Brandon Jovanovich was unable to sing, so his excerpt from Werther and his presence as Otello in the first item were cancelled. Apart from this the only disappointment was Danielle de Niese as Norina in Act I of Don Pasquale, whose voice seemed somewhat screechy in a cavatina that lacked the charm and subtlety it ought to have had.

Otello: Paolo Battaglia as Montano, Gerald Finley as Iago, Alasdair Elliott as Roderigo and Peter Hoare as Cassio sang the beginning of Act I before the entry of Otello.

Il Barbiere di Siviglia: Thomas Allen sang Largo al facotum, Figaro’s description of his own occupation in Act I. This was delightful and really got the evening going.

L’italiana in Algeri: Marie-Nicole Lemieux went from suffering to scheming in Isabella’s Cruda sorte! from Act I.

Don Pasquale: Danielle de Niese sang Norina’s Quel guardo il cavaliere, but seemed to be trying too hard.

La clemenza di Tito: Sarah Connolly sang Sesto’s Act I aria Parto, parto ma tu, ben mio to his beloved Vittelia.

Idomeneo: Emma Bell as Elletra joined the Glyndebourne chorus singing Placido è il mar, evoking a calm sea and the prospect of a prosperous voyage, before the onset of a terrifying storm at the end of Act II.

Die Meistersinger: the orchestral prelude to Act III.

Tannhäuser: Gerald Finley sang Wolfram’s melancholy farewell to Elisabeth, O du mein holder Abendstern, addressed to the evening star.

Khovanshchina: Larissa Diadkova gave a powerful rendering of Martha’s prophecy to Prince Golitsyn in Act II, predicting his disgrace and exile.

Aleko: Sergei Leiferkus sang a cavatina by the eponymous character in this Rachmaninov opera. He sang superbly, with excellent diction.

Carmen: Anne Sofie von Otter sang the habañera, her body, arm and hand movements conveying Carmen’s cavalier attitude to love.

Manon: Kate Royal sang Adieu notre petite table from Act II, as she prepares to deceive Des Grieux and leave the home she has shared with him.

Die lustige Witwe: Felicity Lott and Thomas Allen sang that wonderful duet Lippen schweigen between Hanna and Danilo at the end of the opera.

La Boheme: Ana Maria Martinez sang Mimi’s charming Si, mi chiamano Mimi from Act I.

Der Rosenkavalier: Felicity Lott as the Marschallin, Anne Sofie von Otter as Octavian, and Lucy Crowe as Sophie in the trio at the end of the opera, starting with the Marschallin’s Hab’mir’s gelobt.

Le nozze di Figaro: The finale of the opera with Kate Royal as the Countess, Gerald Finley as the Count, Jennifer Holloway as Cherubino, Danielle de Niese as Susanna, and Matthew Rose as Figaro.

Peter Grimes, English National Opera, London Coliseum, May 2009

This superb Benjamin Britten opera was given a terrific performance by Edward Gardner, with Stuart Skelton singing a strongly lyrical Grimes, Amanda Roocroft a slightly underpowered Ellen Orford, and Gerald Finley a rather too young looking Captain Balstrode, whom I found somewhat unconvincing. Felicity Palmer was terrific as the busybody Mrs. Sedley, and Michael Colvin was a beautifully voiced Methodist, waving his Bible. But there were too many Bibles being waved in this rather odd production by David Alden, who has gone out of his way to portray the inhabitants of the Borough as being crazier than we normally think of them. He is also a director who likes to put some off-beat sex onto stage, but I think it detracts from the power of this opera. Auntie admittedly runs a pub that doubles as a whore-house, but her ‘nieces’ were made to be almost mentally retarded victims of sexual abuse, dressed in identical school uniforms, playing with their dolls. They even hit them when Grimes hits Ellen and forces his new apprentice into joining him for yet more fishing on Sunday. Auntie herself was played as a weirdly transgendered woman in a long coat, performed as a sideshow by Rebecca de Pont Davies. That was not her fault, because Alden plays this opera as part musical, rather in the style of Kurt Weill, and some of the weirder scenes in Act III had a feel of Berlin decadence from the 1920s. There was even a dancing sailor from the Royal Navy — what was he doing in this fishing village?

The lighting by Adam Silverman was very effective, as were the sets by Paul Steinberg, who also collaborated with Alden on La Calisto at the Royal Opera House earlier this season. Costumes by Brigitte Reiffenstuel dressed most of the chorus in very dark colours, which was effective, but there were some odd extras, like the animal head for Auntie in part of Act III. Again the director was showing the inhabitants of the Borough as weird, while Grimes and Ellen are more normal by comparison, but I think the story needs no outside help. What it does need is to make the high points as effective as possible, and Grimes’s Act I soliloquy, “The Great Bear and the Pleiades . . .” can have a tremendous impact, but here he delivered it from a sitting position in the pub rather than it being a sudden intrusion from without by Grimes. This might be seen as a small quibble, but I’m afraid this production left me cold, never really driving home the tension, except for the death of the apprentice near the end. But the production aside, what really drove Britten’s masterpiece home was Stuart Skelton, Felicity Palmer, the chorus, and the conductor Edward Gardner. They were the stars of the evening for me.

Die Tote Stadt, Royal Opera, January 2009

This opera by Erich Wolfgang Korngold had its first performance in 1920 when he was only 23 years old. It’s a remarkably mature work, with a libretto by his father, under the pseudonym of Paul Schott. A man named Paul has been widowed and descends into a compulsive obsession with his dead wife, Marie. A new woman, Marietta — a spitting image of Marie — enters his life and pulls him into a vortex of desire from which he tries to escape by murdering her, thereby recreating the death. This so appals him that he breaks out of his depression, and then realises that the whole affair has been a dream.

In this imaginative production by Willy Decker, Paul was strongly sung by Stephen Gould, and Marie/Marietta by Nadja Michael, whom I last saw as Salome a year ago. She did a superb job of the part, teasingly sexy, both as girlfriend and among her acting troupe, and he was a solidly boring man, depressed and out of his depth in a world of passion. His friend Frank, who doubles as Fritz the actor, was ably portrayed by Gerald Finley, and his housekeeper Brigitte by Kathleen Wilkinson. The production was always engaging, and the religious procession in the background during one part of Act III was very cleverly done, showing the power of religious imagery, yet at the same time keeping it half-lit in the background. The lighting designer, Wolfgang Göbbel did a fine job here, as did the designer Wolfgang Gussman.

The music is richly melodic, as befits one of the last great Romantic composers, but it never grabbed me, despite an excellent performance under the baton of Ingo Metzmacher. It portrays breathless drama without a let-up, and seems to lack the necessary variation to sustain a three-act opera. It owes debts to both Puccini and Richard Strauss, and I came out at the end with a melody from Elektra running through my mind. Korngold wrote five operas, this being the third, but ended his career writing music for movies in Hollywood, a far cry from his early life. He was born in 1897 in Brno, and was a child prodigy who had a ballet performed in Vienna when he was only 11. In 1934 he went to work in Hollywood, and between 1935 and 1938 lived a transatlantic life between America and Vienna. When the Germans annexed Austria in 1938 and the Nazis confiscated his possessions, he remained in Hollywood until his death in 1957.

Dr. Atomic, live cinema screening from the Metropolitan Opera in New York, Nov 2008

This is about Robert Oppenheimer’s leadership of the Second World War quest to build a nuclear bomb. The music by John Adams is wonderful, but the libretto by Peter Sellars falls far short of expressing the potential drama of this story. As a piece of theatre this opera fails, and I kept my eyes closed through most of it. When I opened them, the stage action never seemed to match the music. A better libretto would surely have inspired Adams to give us a more theatrical show, and for his next opera he needs to abandon the collaboration with Sellars. There were too many weaknesses, but the plaintive cry of a Japanese mother at the end was surely an unnecessarily egregious extension of a drama that by this time had rather failed to convey the urgency and determination of the scientists who made it all possible. As for the general in charge complaining that he had difficulty keeping his weight down, the less said the better. The best part of the performance was Gerald Finley’s wonderful portrayal of Oppenheimer, with Sasha Cooke as his wife. Other performers sang well: Richard Paul Fink as Edward Teller, Thomas Glenn as Robert Wilson, and Eric Owens as the general, to name three, and the music was well conducted by Alan Gilbert. But it was a weak production by Penny Woolcock and did nothing to match the rhythmic intensity of Adams’ music, with ineffective sets by Julian Crouch, and darkly conspiratorial lighting by Brain MacDevitt. Many of the audience loved it, but I suspect it was as a catharsis to their sense of guilt over the use of the bomb in 1945.