Our House to Your House: Live from Covent Garden

Loved, loved, loved tonight's Live from Covent Garden. Beautifully chosen and performed pieces, loads of Italian opera and an array of diverse and global performers. Best of all, glorious, glorious singing! I want to watch it again - worth far more than £4.99!!!

From Bach's Concerto for Two Violins through to Stephanie Wake-Edwards really going for it with Handel's 'Where Shall I Fly?' to Rossini's debate about the many benefits of marriage sung between Blaise Malaba and Filipe Manu, 'Ah! mi perdo mi confondo'. Some serious shirt fashion being sported here and such stage presences; who can not love a Kiwi who looks like a Bollywood movie idol or an opera singing international economist PhD? Mendelsohhn's piano trio in D major, then Filipe Manu singing Donizetti's 'Una furtiva lagrima' from L’elisir d’amore.

And what a beautiful revelation Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha was. I've never heard such pure singing before', in Catalani's 'Ebben Ne andrò lontana'. Stupdenous stuff. Who knew there was another version of La Boheme? I want to explore more of Leoncavallo's La Boheme after hearing Stephanie Wake-Edwards and Filipe Manu flirting away through 'Sei 'proprio tu che hai scritto ciò?' The music is very delightful. Yet. there was still more! Andrés Presno with 'No puede ser' by Sorazabal. Masabane Cecilia Rangwanashav and Blaise Malaba reappeared, with beautiful piano playing by Antonio Pappano, for Gershiwn's Summertime, and Bess, you is my woman now. Such range and clarity of singing.

Exquisitely danced Within the Golden Hour pas de deux by Mayara Magri and Matthew Ball and choreographed by Christopher Wheeldon. So elegantly and tenderly danced with some terrific lifts. Kenneth MacMillan: Concerto, second movement pas de deux, was more like how complexly can you bend, lift or carry a ballerina before you drop her or she breaks? Danced with incredible precision by Fumi Kaneko and Reece Clarke. I liked seeing how gentle Reece Clarke was with placing his ballerina down at one point.

Furthermore, Viva Verdi! Brindisi ‘Libiamo ne’ lieti calici’ by Filipe Manu and everyone, including an enthusiastically bouncy Antonio Pappano conducting. Encore!

Brilliant arrangements of the musicians with the singers, and I loved how you could see the joins - the techies running around in the background; musicians maneuvering in and out of place; Antonio Pappano enjoying Blaise Malaba being interviewed. What a company! and excellent observation of social distancing!