First live social distancing opera and ballet experience streamed to an audience at home. Very well done and empathic, in that the concert was dedicated to those we've lost during this season and remembered Black Lives Matter too.
Edgy performances - Louise Alder really going for it in some screechy opera which then turned into something musical by Kurt Weill with spoken sung lyrics - Benjamin Britten and W H Auden going all Cabaret! Then Toby Spence singing Six Songs from a Shropshire Lad based on A E Houseman's poems - operatic folk songs or agony aunt advice, opera style! A minimal contact ballet for two followed by some funny operatic songs about pets (mostly cats I think, again based on poetry).
My favourite was Gerald Finley singing about being almost eaten and then escaping from inside a crocodile, again in operatic folk style. Some very dramatic Handel in Italian, 'Tornami a vagheggiar', in a equally gorgeously dramatic gown by Louise Alder. Finished off by the Pearl Fishers' Duet by Bizet.
So what was it like to be an opera/ballet audience at home? I was fascinated by the positioning and maintaining distance, but also how this gave a new accessibility to very high culture. For example, Antonio Pappano introduced and presented from his piano; the singers acted their vocals out more (although they had a very limited audience in an empty hall), and even the interview of a composer was done at a distance, but seemed to bring a new quality to it somehow. Perhaps not the Pavarotti belter favourites we were all expecting, but very well done and an engaging mixture of strange and new, appropriate for this strange new world.
Antosnio Pappano's playing deserves a special mention for gusto and encouraging enthusiasm.
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