It has just been over a month since I last saw Dr Atomic at the English National Opera. Somehow it has been relatively easy to recall what I saw and how I felt. The set and costumes were wonderfully evocative of the era (40s). Dr Oppenheimer (Gerald Finley) sang the title role with conviction. And Peter Sellar's direction had an intimate quality - whether it was in the lab, the home of Oppenheimer or at the test site. John Adams's score was dramatic. The best part was the slow, incessant and girating sequence that led up to the test bomb explosion: you could tell the entire audience was gripped by that dramatic ending
Those of us London-centric folks easily forget there are great concert halls in other parts of the world. I remember as a young kid buying DG LPs with von Karajan on the front cover conducting the Berlin Philharmonic. So as my first visit to the city, a visit to the Philharmonie to listen to the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra was a must. Ivan Fisher started the evening's concert with Haydn Symphony 88. A light and delightful work. As I'd expected, the acoustic of the hall was amazing - probably a good 2.5 second of reverberation - and much more generous than the Royal Festival Hall in London. The strings sounded sweet and the timpani came through clearly with definition. The audience was then treated to Béla Bartók's Seven Pieces for Choir and Chamber Orchestra: the Berlin Phil reduced in size occupying only half of the stage while the Netherlands Youth Choir took the other half. These young performers (all female) sang in Hungarian from memory - not easy at all - and rea...
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