Diary of a Culture Hedonist

The young cellist Danjulo Ishizaka was the soloist in Prokofiev's symphony-concerto for cello and orchestra op 125. The work began with poise and confidence. Jurowski led the London Philharmonic Orchestra with much rhythmic precision. Ishizaka's virtuosity was in much evidence as his fingers danced on the strings delivering those seemingly impossible double / treble stops. Yet in the more mellow and slower passages, there was a lot of sincerity and lyricism. The cello-orchestra interplay came across well too. No doubt he exerted great pressure on his cello. Towards the beginning of the final movement, Ishizaka looked at Jurowski, then the whole orchestra stopped playing: the A string snapped! Ishizaka left the concert platform briefly, came back with a shiny new A string. There was a bit of a chuckle in the audience when the soloist and conductor were working out where to pick up the work. Everyone got back into the work quite quickly and the final section allegro marcato was

Aleksandra Kurzak as Fiorilla was undoubtedly the real star in Il Turco in Italia at the Royal Opera. She had that sexy-feisty look always luring men - well in this case Selim (sung by the good looking Ildebrando D'Arcangelo) - to keep her amused. Don Geronio (sung by Alessandro Corbelli) was her deliciously 'dull' husband. A fun frivolous evening.