At the Night Shift

Well, it's not often I leave home to go to a gig after dinner. My friend's band Silvermoths was playing at The Night Shift at the Queen Elizabeth Hall last night. This was the "warm up" session at 9pm - where they played a few numbers including some of their compositions. The QEH was packed with a very engaged if chatty audience.

Then at 10pm, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment with Rosemary Joshua played an hour of Carelli, Handel and Vivaldi. I was at first intrigued and subsequently enjoyed this format - a late start so you are not dashing from work and trying to chow down dinner in a hurry. Drinks are permitted throughout - so you can be nursing a pint of beer or swirling a glass of merlot while listenting to Corelli. The presenter (Alistair Appleton) added a relaxed atmosphere and provided a dialogue between the audience and the on stage performers. Of course, the OAE played the music wonderfully. After the concert, there was a DJ cueuing some tracks until the wee hours. All in all, it was an unsual yet strangely satisfying night out.

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Hearing the Berlin Philharmonic at the Philharmonie

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...

Will the swish looking Princi become the hottest thing on Wardour St?

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Faust at the Royal Opera

This is a revival of Charles Edwards (design) / David McVicar (director) production of Gounod Faust. Visually, it is still exciting to watch with the ever changing stage sets of this fantasy. In this production, Erwin Schrott was Méphistophélès - who had style and poise as this devilish character. Michael Fabiano did a good job at portraying Faust - especially in the first act when he had to start off as an old man before turning into an energetic youngster. Irina Lungu had the right French voice type for Marguerite - somewhat vulnerable with sufficient warmth for the romantic scenes. Dan Ettinger in the pit kept the pace going, and the chorus did magnificently in those big numbers.

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